"Where Chineses drive." : English student-life at Peking.

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CHARLES WILLIAM WASON
COLLECTION

CHINA AND THE CHINESE

THE GIFT OF

CHARLES WILLIAM WASON

CLASS OF 1876

1918

"Hie date shows when this volume was taken.

Cornell University Library
DS 795.W56

"Where Chineses drive. " :English student

3 1924 023 488 590

The original of tiiis book is in
tine Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023488590

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"WHERE CHINESES DRIVE."

ENGLISH STUDENT-LIFE AT PEKING.

BT

k STUDENT INTERPRETER.

WITH EXAMPLES OF CHINESE BLOCK-PHINTING,
AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS.

" from the destined walls
Of Cambalu. sea of Gathaian Can."

Par. Lost, xi.

LONDON:

W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE,

PALL MALL, S.W.

PUBLISHERS TO THE INDIA OFFICE.

UKiVl885.' '

(All Mighta reserved.)

L

^«^

Ch'Mg-tzv, Conim, on Lun Yii, xi. 17.

" Among the Students there was certainly no want of men
of intelligence and ability; yet, after all, the only one who
has left us a record of their ways is this dull simple scribbler."

The same, adapted.

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London: Printed by W. H. Allen & Co. 13, Waterloo Place, S.W.

PREFACE.

On the Peiho.

Deae S ,

You complain that I never answer your letters,
and that when I do I tell you nothing ; and you add
(it seemed unkind) that I might as well be in England,
a home-keeping youth, as before. I meant to refute
you, but an uneasy conscience tells me you are not
altogether wrong, and insists on a penance — for you, I
expect, as well as for myself. Partly to satisfy this
desire of yours for some account of my states of being
during the last two years, and partly to show you how
mistaken you were in wishing for anything of the sort,
I send you this. It is but a rough sketch, such as Our
Special Artist, when in a hurry, might despatch from
the Seat of War, with a " here are houses," or " insert
men and boys," scrawled over the blank spaces. These
you must fill up as you will ; and may believe, as you

VI PEEPACE.

please, that I agree with Mr. Archibald Forbes in
thinking a personal element indispensable, and so
introduce my " Bertram " and " O'Hara " — or that,
on the other hand, these had their prototypes, sayers
and doers, of whom they are shadows. At any rate,
take my sketch as a fair representation of Student Life
in Peking, from a Student's point of view — and more
than this it is not intended to be. .So I shall hope to
be pardoned by you, as well for not writing then as for
what I have written now.

Yours,

T. A. D.

CONTENTS.

I.— The First' oe Chinese China
II. — EiTROPEAN Peking : Eablt Dittibs
III. — Teachees and Tatjght .

IV. WiNTEB .....

V. — Spring and AuTtrMN
VI. — At the Hills
VII. — SrMMER IN Town .
VIII. — Exam, and Exit.

Note ....

Page
1

23
68
104
164
197
235
265
274

ilr

WHERE CHINESES DRIVE."

I. The First op Chinese China.

The narrow fields that divide the Foreign Settlement
from the native city of Tientsin are for a traveller
Pekingwards the boundary between two worlds. So far,
modern comfort has wrapped him round, modern science
has made his path smooth. Each port at which he has
touched since he left Europe has been, as it were, a new
Europe in miniature — plus Asiatics of various shades
of yellowness or blackness, who in these places of
macadamized roads and gas-lamps and many-storied
houses seem far more foreign than the " foreign resi-
dents " themselves. Since he reached what is, geo-
graphically speaking, China, his days have been spent
in Western steamers, Western hotels. Western streets :
life in China, Chinese China, he has had no experience
of. Once past the floating bridge of boats that crosses
the Pei-ho above Tientsin, he will learn more of it.
Meanwhile he is waiting in Tientsin, a bale of goods to
be forwarded to Peking — for there are good-natured

I

WHEBB 0HINE8I18 DBIVE.

people in the Consulate who know, as he does not, his
wants, and are kind, and will make all ready for his
first journey in China.

There is a choice of ways. You may go by road
through Ho-hsi-wu ; or by boat to T'ungchow, and
thence as you will — pony, donkey, cart, canal — to
Peking. The road journey has been done on horseback,
with relays of ponies, in a few hours : with a cart, or
on a cart, however, it takes two or three days. The
carts (of which more anon) are small, and so travellers
with heavy luggage avoid them ; the roads are — un-
speakable, hence people with ideas of comfort go by
river. But whichever route they choose, they must
lay in a stock of provisions (unless their digestions are
powerful and their sensibilities not at all acute, in
which case they may trust to chance Chinese provender),
and further take with them bedding, and, if the weather
is warm, mosquito curtains. There are foreign stores in
Tientsin where almost every conceivable eatable can be
had potted or tinned. Of these, not the least important
are butter and milk, for milch-cows are rare in the
north, and of churns there are few or none, as the
natives themselves would have no use for them. Besides
these, a few tins of soup and of sausages will help to
break the monotony of insipid chicken and flavourless
mutton that else makes meal-time unintei'esting on the
road. A cask of water is indispensable, a few loaves
of bread advisable (Chinese bread is like a suet-pudding
that has got itself baked by mistake, and is somewhat
underdone at that). Knives, forks, plates, and glasses,
are luxuries. Many have done the journey with only a

THE FIRST OF CHINESE CHINA.

clasp-knife, a series of Chinese bowls, and that curious
earthenware spoon which the people here go in for, and
which resembles nothing so much as a sauce-boat.

So far I have got along, in a halting sort of way,
without a single "I," but it has been difficult enough ;
whether through want of practice in this sort of journal-
making, or through excess of egotism, I cannot say.
But now I think I shall drop the impersonal. And,
after all, there is a sameness in this journey that will
allow any traveller to consider himself a type, and his
experiences those of nine-tenths of the people who go
up the Pei-ho to Peking. For I chose (or rather I
followed the advice given me in Tientsin) to go by boat.
As I knevr nothing of the language or of the ways of
the country, it was necessary to have some kind of
interpreter and guide. They have any quantity on
stock at Tientsin — "boys" who speak a little English,
or what does duty for English among the Chinese —
and can cook, and have done the same by many of one's
predecessors. Their fee for the whole business is five
dollars. My boy was named Yung Srh — Yung No. 2,
the second in the Yung family (as I discovered later on)
— and he was not a boy in any ordinary sense of the
word at all, as he owned to thirty-five. I fancy he was
a good average boy — but the subject of boys generally
we will postpone, as it is of too great importance to be
treated parenthetically. Somebody was kind enough to
hire a boat for me and to see my luggage on board.
We started at about six in the afternoon. As I had very
little else to do for the next four days but study the
ways of house-boats in general and of mine in parti-

1*

WHERE CHINE8E8 BEIVE.

cular, I " was enabled to make a few observations " on
them, which, if you do not take any keen interest in
boats, you will indulgently omit.

The house-boats on the Pei-ho are for the most part
some thirty-five feet long and about six feet at the
greatest breadth. Two-fifths, or one half of the length,
is taken up by the " house," one-fifth at the stem is
given to the steersman, and some two-fifths form a deck
from which to work the sweeps at the bows. The roof
of the cabin is three feet or so above the level of this
deck, its floor, two or three feet below. The house is
usually divided into three compartments, some eight,
six, and four feet long respectively. The first is the
sitting-room, furnished with a clumsy square table, a
wooden chair or two, and a square stool. It is entered
from the deck, and one has to squeeze through the first
two feet, and drop down the second' — unless some more
considerate boat-owner has provided a pair of steps,
This entrance — door you cannot call it — of six feet by
three, is further divided by the mast, or the pole to
which the towing-line is attached, as the case may be,
and can be closed by shutters fitting in a groove. The
sides of the room have also their shutters, mere var-
nished planks (if the varnish is fresh and the day hot, a
headache is hard to avoid), numbered according to the
side, right or left. Sometimes lattice-work, in the
common rectangular pattern and covered with paper, is
added ; rarely a little pane or two of Canton glass takes
the place of the paper in the centre of the pattern. The
next room is the sleeping-compartment. Nearly its
whole length is taken up by a wooden platform a foot

THE FIRST OF GHINE8E CHINA.

and a half high, intended to serve as a bed. In an
ordinary boat there is little or no division between these
two rooms : in a slightly larger and more ornamental
one, latticed panels with little doors, glazed and cur-
tained, separate them. There is a similar division
between the sleeping-room and the little cabin behind —
reserved to boys and cooks, and sacred and not de-
scribable. The arched roof of the house is of matting
stretched on a framework of bamboo. Rolls of mat-
ting encumber the top, with punt-poles, tow-ropes,
oars, and the like. If the wind is adverse the mast is
unshipped, and lies clumsy and bepitched along the
length of the roof, projecting each way to stern and
bows.

The boat is moved by sail, or by scull and sweeps, or
by punt-pole, or by towing-liae. The sails are of mat-
ting or canvas, large, not unpicturesque against a red
sky, with horizontal battens of bamboo to every ten
inches of height. The sweeps are made in two pieces :
a pole of some five feet, to which is riveted a flat board
for a blade. They are worked in a thole and pin, the
pin sunk in a socket, and movable, oar and all, in one
piece at pleasure. As Chinamen, they say, must do
everything backwards (this, like most epigrammatic
remarks of the kind, is a little too sweeping — even for
the subject), the rower backs water, and does not,
strictly speaking, row. To help his wrist he has a
transverse bit of wood fixed to the handle of his
sweep, making it look like the handle of a spade. The
oarsman on the bow-side strokes. Not that Two keeps
time : he is most aggressively independent, and this

WHUBE GSINESES DRIVE.

absence of combined action affects one's equilibrium
seriously at times. There may be but one oarsman,
assisted by a man at the stern who works a huge scull
of triangular shape, and, considering its clumsiness,
works it well. The punt-poles are very long, with spike
and hook at one end and spade-handle at the other.
They are worked from the shoulder, the punter running
barefoot along a narrow ledge outside the house. The
towing-line passes over a pulley at the mast-head, or at
the head of the spar set up for the purpose, and can be
paid out to any reasonable length. It is in two pieces
at least, a knot at the end of one line fitting into a loop
at the end of another. This extensibility and divisibility
are made necessary by the nature of the river. The
Pei-ho would out-Meander Meander. One minute you
are sailing N.E. ; a bend, and you turn S. ; presently
S.W. ; then with a sharp curve half round the compass
again.

For, as the soil between Peking and the sea is but a
series of layers of dry mud, without stones to give it
even a decent sort of coherence, the stream finds no
difficulty in changing its course at will. The spring
floods will wash down a hundred feet of earth, to pre-
sently carry it to the other shore. A long low bank is
formed, rising daily. Next spring it will be covered
with weeds ; another year, and it may pay taxes as
good corn-land. Meanwhile, two parties are dissatis-
fied, doubtless: the farmer whose land the river has
filched, and the tracker who on one shore fi.nds his
towing-path gone, and on the other has to make a long
detour, and pull a boat a hundred yards away. In such

THE FIB8T OF CHINESE CHINA.

a case the boat may be in shore one minute, the towing-
line shortened to a few feet : a curve in the river, and
the trackers start off running, while the line is rapidly
given out by the steersman. Every now and then the
trackers will avoid such a curve by fording the stream,
the water up to their necks. And if the boat get
aground, as often happens where there are so many
sand-banks, the boatmen never hesitate to jump into
the river and shove her off with their shoulders. The
crew of an ordinary house-boat consists of four men as a
rule. Two will be on shore tracking, one at the rudder,
and the fourth with a long punt-pole, sounding the
depth of the water and staving off passing vessels.
Here the noose and knot come in : there is no time, or
room, perhaps, for one boat to sink her towing-line
when meeting another, as our bargees do. There is no
trouble, though ; the man at the bows with his punt-pole
hooks hold of his own line, unlooses the knot, and waits.
The boats passed, the line is flung on board again, and
the knot refastened. . . . But I am losing myself in my
subject.

We pushed off, as I said, about 6 o'clock, and for a
long distance had to make our way through a crowd of
junks of all sizes that lay above the Customs' barrier —
below which alone are steamers allowed to ply. The
Chinese do not go in for a harbour-master, apparently,
for to my inexperience there seemed to be no opening
among the shipping. But my master-boatman was
equal to the occasion. Seizing the long punt-pole, and
watching his opportunity, he would stick the hook into
any part of a neighbouring boat that came handy, and

WHEBB GHJNSSE8 DBIVR

by dint of pulling and pushing, squeeze through. The
men on the other boats did not seem to mind a bit ;
even when they were going in the same direction as
ourselves, and we hooked on to them, they were perfectly
apathetic, as long as the pole avoided their bare legs.
So we managed to get along, past the entrance of the
Grand Canal and the ruins of the French cathedral,
past innumerable dirty mud-huts crowning dirtier mud-
banks, through two floating bridges formed of barges —
it was such a bridge that was removed to cut off the
escape of their victims by the mob on Midsummer Day,
1870— till at last we got clear of the filthy town. A
strong breeze sprang up, the sail was set, and the boat-
men came and lay down on the deck in front of my
cabin and chattered. Meanwhile it had been getting
dark, and my boy lit the paper lamp that hung just
inside my cabin, and prepared dinner. I never could
make out how he managed to cook, and to cook so well,
in the little square box, for it is nothing better, that
does duty as a galley. But even with his cookery I
dined in very picnic fashion, with my one knife and
fork, a cup for a glass, salt and pepper on little squares
of paper, and minus most things else. The table was
only two feet square, and very rickety, and presently the
breeze dropped and the boatmen took to sculling out of
time, whereby I lost half my soup.

In another hour or so we anchored for the night.
My boy had made up a bed in the inner cabin with a
railway rug and some blankets, and so I should have
been comfortable enough if it had not been for the mos-
quitoes. And just before I put my lantern out I caught

TH^ FIBST OP 0HINP8E OSINA.

sight of a cockroach, watching my movements with
great apparent interest, I went for that cockroach, but
he slipped into corners and avoided me. and I gave him
up finally, and turned in with an uneasy sense of his
presence. I soon had a very uneasy sense of the pre-
sence of the mosquitoes, and at last I got up — not
knowing then that China boys are accustomed to being
waked at all hours, and thinking I would not disturb
the poor fellow's slumbers — and tumbled out the clothes
from a trunk until I came across a mosquito net I had
providentially brought with me." After several unsuc-
cessful attempts to hang it up, I opened my umbrella
and spread it over that, then crept underneath and slept
unbitten. I found the mangled corpse of the cockroach
under me when I woke up.

However, I was better off than others were, who had
to spend the night on long cane chairs, exposed in rear
as well as in front, to the mosquitoes. They preferred
not to sit down for some days afterwards. When two
or three men are coming up together, it is usual to
have a separate boat for the cook's galley and the boys.
The system has its disadvantages. You are in one boat,
your friend in another, and your provisions in the third.
You agree to breakfast together. The next morning
you wake up, feel hungry, and go on deck. No boats
are to be seen, and you do not understand the language.
You yell to attract attention. It makes you hungrier.
Then you get excited and land, and rush frantically
down stream. After a mile or two, you come to a good
straight reach and see that they are not there, and
return hurriedly and find all three boats lashed toge-

10 WHJEBE GHINU8ES DRIVE.

ther and your friend smoking a cigarette and apologising.
He had waited round the bend just up stream for you
an hour or more ; everything was getting cold, and he
was hungry and so fell to. Why had I gone off down
south in such a hurry ? . . .

These bends in the river are trying to one's patience
at the best of times. If you are anxious to get to your
journey's end, and learn from your boy that it is only
ten miles off, you feel happy, and go on with your novel.
Then you look up and see among the fields a sail
moving along in the opposite direction : beyond that,
again, is a mast proceeding in the same way as yourself.
The effect of the sail and mast among the crops is so
peculiar that at first you do not begin to draw deductions
from it. When you do, you anxiously cross-examine
your boy, and learn that his ten miles mean ten miles
by road : by river, it is nearly forty, and you cannot be
in till to-morrow.

Life on a house-boat is rather monotonous at any
time ; but when it rains, one must be divinely philo-
sophical to take any interest in it at all, until the rain
rouses you to a keen sense of disgust by trickling
through the roof and running down your neck, as it is
pretty sure to do. I suppose it is my luck, but if there
is a leak anywhere it is certain to be over my chair or
my pillow, according as the rain comes on in the day-
time or at night. Meanwhile the boatmen have all
burrowed under the planks of the fore-deck, into a hold
about six feet by three or four — and yet when the storm
is over they do not seem flattened much more than
usual.

THE EIBST OP OHINUSE CHINA. 11

When several men are going up stream together,
they can get up some sort of diversion by tossing their
empty tins or bottles into the river, and having shots
at them with revolvers as they pass. The anxiety of
the boatmen to secure the bottles, which are in great
demand among the Chinese, and their joy and satis-
faction when these have run the gauntlet safely (as they
usually do) and are netted by the last man, cause a
faint glow of excitement, while the judicious calculation
of probabilities affords satisfaction to a mathematical
mind, as one man put it who had made dollars by
taking odds on the bottles. Sometimes some more
fortunate traveller will meet with at least the promise
of an adventure. On his way up to Peking, a few years
ago, one of the then students left his cabin to see what
was happening, for his house-boat had come to a stand-
still, and the boatmen were evidently excited about
something. Looking out, he saw two or three boats
jammed together across the stream. On the bows of
one of them stood a foreigner, his left hand covered
with blood, while he was striking wildly at the water
with a hanger. When the student had composed
himself sufficiently to make inquiries, the other ex-
plained that his towing-line had got mixed up somehow
with a barge, and in trying to get it loose he had cut
his hand ; he thought it would save time if he were to
cut the rope instead. There was nothing much else the
matter.

To a sportsman things seem brighter, except perhaps
in the middle of summer. For one thing, your true
sportsman possesses an amount of patience that passes

12 WSEBU GHINE8E8 BBIVK

any ordinary understanding. For another, the Pei-ho
abounds in wild fowl of many kinds, which in their
innocence will approach near enough to the boat to be
comfortably shot. On shore there are occasionally
hares : pigeons, always and everywhere. The Chinese
have a barbarian ignorance (may it never be en-
lightened !) of the most rudimentary game laws, and
they regard pigeons as ferce natures. You may go into
what passes as a rick-yard in North China, and tumble
over a score of them, while the farmer looks on uncon-
cerned. If he objects at all, he does it apologetically.
Paley shot a lot one day in the street, in front of (what
we should consider) the owner's house. The man puffed
away at his pipe in silence till the twenty-first bird
dropped. Then he suggested mildly that his honour
— Paley — had had a good time, and, as there were only
four or five birds remaining now, perhaps it would be as
well to leave them to go on with. They would rear a
new brood for his honour's shooting next year.

As I was all alone, I was glad to meet with fine
weather as a rule. When that obtained I spent most
of my time on shore. It is very easy to keep pace with
a boat, even going down stream, for there are any
amount of short cuts to be taken. It is a little awk-
ward, though, when you are a stranger in the land, to
take what, you think is a short cut, and presently find
yourself stranded in a field of hao Hang — millet twelve
or fourteen feet high — with no apparent path through
it, and the only way open to you to retrace your steps a
mile or so. After this you humbly keep to the tow-path.
This varies in breadth as much as the river, being now

THE FIRST OF CHINESE CHINA. 13

a cart-road, now a bridle-track, now a mere path trampled
through the crops ; for, as I said, the river will every
now and then wash down yards of bank, crops and all,
and new paths have to be trodden out. The country
near the river is generally carefully cultivated, rather in
the market-garden style for the most part. The fields
are watered from the river by means of an ingenious
machine which, I believe, has been often described — a
wooden trough inclined at an angle of about forty-five
degrees, in which works an endless chain with flat
boards attached at right angles. These, as they revolve
round the pulleys at each end, lift the water to the head
of the trough, whence it flows into the channels prepared
for it. The machine is worked by a treadle, and more
nearly resembles the paddle-wheel of a steamer than
anything else I can think of just now. Besides this
method of raising water, they use a bucket swung
between two men, or an ordinary well-bucket and
windlass. Suction-pumps are apparently unknown.

There is, as a rule, little to distinguish one field from
its neighbour : a tiny ditch, a low earthen mound, a
meagre line of plants of a difl'erent kind from the crops
they enclose, or small stone pillars, four-square, with
inscriptions in red or black, serve for boundary marks.
These last form the usual delimits of the graveyards,
so many of which are to be seen about here. I think
it is Fortune who draws attention to the beauty of some
of the cemeteries : one in particular, planted with silver
pines, and ornamented with the stone pillar on the back
of a tortoise that serves as a token of Imperial regard
for the dead. In parts the country was exceedingly

14 WHEBE CHTNESE8 BBIVE.

pretty. The river wound about among waving crops,
and in the distance, and often approaching nearly to
the bank, were clumps of green trees. One reach I
noticed of peculiar beauty. The stream flowed straight
for a quarter of a mile, and then turned abruptly to the
left. The background vpas formed by a semi-circle of
trees standing out against the sky, and round the bend
a boat was slowly passing. On the right a long line
of grey barges was moored, for it was evening, and
from two of them hung the red flag of their banner
lazily flapping in the light breeze. That little patch of
red had a wonderful effect in lighting up the picture.
But I did not mean to weary you with descriptions of
scenery or of Pechili husbandry.

I woke early on the second day of my journey, and
found the boat still moored, so stripped and took a
header off the side. Chinamen as a rule do not go in
in this way, it would seem ; for when I came up I heard
a shout, and saw my boatman getting out his punt-pole,
under the idea that I had fallen overboard, I suppose.
I had no fancy to be hooked, and avoided him. But I
was glad to call to him when trying to get on board
again, for the boat drew little water and the stream was
strong. This time he did not offer to use the hook, but
caught hold of my hands, missed his footing, and
tumbled backwards. I kept hold, and floundered on
deck in a most undignified v?-ay. I resolved not to
bathe from a house-boat again without a rope-ladder.

The yokes the trackers wear would do capitally for
this. They are simply flat pieces of wood with ropes at
each end, and easily adjustable to the towing-line.

THE FIBST OF OSINESE CHINA. 15

There were never more than three of the trackers
pulling at my boat at a time, but some of the heavy
grain-junks going up stream require twenty or thirty.
We saw many of these junks with their little yellow
flags inscribed with the town of Kiangsu or Chekiang,
from which the grain they carried had come. Some-
times we met a large ark-like structure, quaintly built
in stories of a dark reddish wood, and apparently the
house-boat of some person of condition. The people on
board would stare at me, but calmly, for Europeans are
no rarity now on the river. The faces of the women,
whose curiosity one would expect to be a little more
stirred, showed even less emotion ; but then the thick
coat of paint they wore hardly gave expression a fair
chance.

But to go back to bathing. The Pei-ho is not a
tempting river for a swim. The waters are thickly
charged with mud, and are often quite yellow. Then
the current is strong, and there are unexpected holes
and eddies. But in parts the bottom is of fine sand,
and the depth between four and five feet for a mile or
more, as I have ascertained by walking or swimming
after a boat going down stream. This yellowness of
the waters has a curious effect sometimes. The sky is
a bright blue, and just where sky and river seem to
meet is a line of pale green. It seems so natural at
first that you believe it really is due to the mixture
of colours, and make a note to that effect, which is
crossed out presently when you find it is only the fresh
green of the young crops on a low bank. It is because
of the badness of the river-water that it is necessary to

16 WHEBE CHINE8ES BEIVE.

take a cask of fresh water from Tientsin to Peking.
Otherwise the allotted peck of dirt would be unfairly
exceeded, and that long before you reached T'ungchow.
Yet the boatmen, when they are thirsty, do not hesitate
to scoop up water from the river and drink it. And I
believe our troops in the campaign of 1860 drank it,
though usually after the earth had been precipitated by
stirring the water with an alum-stick.

The four or five days I spent on board were passed
in very much the same way. I rose, breakfasted, went
for a walk on shore, and counted the hours till tiffin-
time ; tiffined, read, and counted the hours till dinner-
time ; dined, smoked, and calculated how soon I could
with propriety go to bed. We anchored at the half-
way stage on the evening of the third day. It was
simply a collection of wretched wood-yards perched on
a high mud-bank, and over-run with pigs and children,
both very inquisitive ; so I put up my shutters and sat
in dignified silence till they all left, then I went to bed.
We reached T'ungchow two days afterwards in the early
morning. The river flows parallel to the town wall in a
straight reach of nearly a mile, I should say. It was
very narrow here, and almost all the available space
was, as at Tientsin, crowded with barges of all sizes,
their flags showing a marvellous variety of shapes and
colours. My boatman shoved good-humouredly through,
and finally came to anchor alongside what would, if the
place were a foreign settlement, be the bund, but which
is now only a stretch of dirty common. Here I found
carts waiting, some thoughtful person in the Legation
having sent them to meet me.

TKE FIRST OF GHINFSE CHINA. 17

A Peking cart is a study in itself. Imagine a box
about four feet long and three feet square, with an
arched roof (a large American over-land trunk with one
of the smaller sides taken out would be very near it),
fastened securely to two beams eight inches or so thick,
and projecting some two feet in one direction and five
feet in the other. The whole is to be supported on a
pair of wooden wheels in iron tires, and to be drawn by
a mule or dilapidated pony. Such are the main features
of a Peking cart. The projection behind of what in front
forms the shaft is made, by means of cross-pieces, into a
sort of shelf, on which luggage may be strapped. They
call it the " cart's-tail " in Peking. Most carts have
little windows on each side covered with gauze, or some-
times glazed. Outside are often little shutters hinged
to the roof, and in front, in hot or rainy weather, is an
awning stretched from the roof over the mule's head,
where it is supported by a couple of sticks. The driver
sits on the left on the splash-board, or runs alongside.
They are most awkward arrangements to get into. You
have to first sit on the shaft, then wriggle yourself into
the cart backwards. When you are inside you find only
a mattress, no seats of any kind, and so, like a tailor or
a turbaned Turk, you squat cross-legged. But the
torture endured until you get used to it and hardened
and callous ! The roads are terrible, a succession of
ruts and deep puddles, and the cart has no springs
(they would be broken in ten minutes if it had), and
goes lumbering along, first bumping into a hole, then
rolling over an unexpected stone, until the wretched
traveller, his head thumped on each side, and his elbows

2

18 WEEBE CHINESES BEIVE.

livid with bruises, loses patience and prefers to walk.
In one of the earlier embassies, Lord Amherst's, I think
it was, an unfortunate man who was not strong enough
to ride or walk was conveyed in one of these affairs, and,
being too weak to keep his head from striking against
the sides of the cart, suffered in consequence severe
concussion of the brain. But, of course, the inventor of
the thing ran no danger of that sort, and did not think
it necessary to allow for remote contingencies. His
fellow-countrymen appreciate his invention ; you will
see two, or even three, fat Chinamen jammed into a
cart, and smoking or reading, and apparently having a
good time. I did not, however, anticipate anything of
the sort for myself, and decided to go on foot.

We left the boat about eight in the morning and
passed through part of the town, with narrow filthy
streets and open drains, then under the crumbhng city
walls into the country. Here I formed my first views
on the subject of Chinese high-roads. Those I saw
looked more like dried-up water-courses than anything
else when they ran between banks, and like pools, fens,
quagmires, marshes, anything dirty and stagnant, when
the country 'was level. Indeed a high-road in North
China is never, except perhaps by an unwary or thought-
less foreigner, put to what we should consider its legiti-
mate use. The neighbouring husbandmen build small
mud dykes across it, to prevent the rain-water from run-
ning off. When the ponds thus formed are not used for
irrigating the fields, they are stocked with fish. Owing
to this perverse habit my carts were often obliged to
make a detour of three sides of a square, to strike the

THE FIRST OF OHINESF CHINA. 19

road again fifty yards higher up. And so we wound
about the country much like the Pei-ho : and though it
was only supposed to be thirteen miles or so to Peking,
I must have walked twenty at least. If I remember
rightly, Mrs. Muter (in her Travels) says that she had to
spend the night outside the walls of Peking, because,
although her friends had told her that it was less than
fourteen miles from T'ungchow, they forgot to say that
it took more than seven hours to do.

In spite of the roads, perhaps in consequence of them,
the country is often very pretty. Certainly it is flat, but
there are plenty of trees planted along the paths or
about the tombs. These are numerous, from the unpre-
tending mound of earth in the middle of a grain-field
to the mausoleum walled round and guarded at its
entrance by a pair of stone lions. A common form of
cemetery is a mean between these. In the centre of the
space and lying back from the entrance is a large plas-
tered mound, or sometimes a pair of them. On each
side of them are ranged smaller mounds, the graves of
the descendants of the man entombed in the larger one,
I presume. The whole is surrounded by funereal-
looking trees planted symmetrically. Sometimes a
semi-circular wall of earth forms the background, but
this is the only approach I saw to the omega-shaped
tombs so common in. the south.

This is fortunate, perhaps, for the cross-country tra-
veller. It was at one of the southern ports, Foochow^
or Amoy, I forget which, that a man went out, it is said,
with a gun and some hope of sport. The hillside along
which he was walking was covered with graves, then

2 *

20 WHERE GEINE8E8 BBIYE.

overgrown with grass. Presently the attendant China-
man saw his master disappear, and heard muffled shouts
for help. Peering cautiously through the grass he found
him entombed ; and as the lively struggles he was making
showed that he was not exactly resigned to his condition,
the coolie tried to get him out. When all his efforts
were in vain, he shouted to some rustics near to come
and assist. They tried with a rope for half an hour or
so, but scarcely moved him. Finally they annexed the
rope to a neighbouring water-buffalo. But the buffalo
declined to stir and stood lazily flapping the flies off
with his tail, and ruminating generally. All was despair,
when the sportsman's gun, which he had fortunately
. kept hold of all the time, slipped, and, going off, lodged
a charge of shot in the buffalo just where St. Gengul-
phus' foot, in the legend, caught the foul demon. Then
both buffalo and man were moved — across country —
rather too abruptly, perhaps, for comfort ; but any ex-
citement is pleasing after the monotony of two hours'
confinement in a second-hand grave.

It was just after passing one of the family tombs I
was speaking of that I came across the prettiest bit on
the way. The road ran through a green dell, and on
each side were trees with hanging foliage, and right in
front lay a sedgy pool that just caught the flickering
sunlight through the leaves. The carters had no room
in their soul for beauty : a sedgy pool was a sedgy pool
to them — a thing to provoke bad language and to give
them an extra quarter of a mile to go over. Presently,
two miles or so from T'ungchow^, we hit upon the old
high-road to Peking. It runs in almost a straight line

THE FIRST OF OHINFSF CHINA. 21

for forty li or nearly fifteen miles, and is paved with
large blocks of stone. It may have been of great ser-
vice once, but now, like all public works in China, it has
fallen into disrepair, and there are great gaping ruts
between the blocks that are filled with mud in wet
weather. If the cart-wheel stick in one of these it is
more than the mule and carter between them can do to
get it out, and a long delay is caused by the carter going
for assistance. As it requires no little skill and patience
to avoid these pitfalls, whenever they can do so the
carters leave the high-road, preferring a swamp to the
broken pavement. "While we were on this road we
turned into a village hostel to breakfast. The inn con-
sisted merely of a few rooms on each side of the entrance
to a yard, and exposed to the full view of passers-by.
As it was nearly noon, there were plenty of these ; and,
as I was a foreigner, they stopped to see me eat. My
boy prepared breakfast from what he had brought with
him : but I had sent back the things I borrowed from
Tientsin, and may be I did not impress the natives with
Western ways as much as I could wish. I had only a
clasp-knife and my fingers to take my food with. How-
ever, they looked on with interest, and seemed pleased
when I cut up a Bologna sausage and handed the slices
round on the point of my knife, with due regard to
seniority. The first nibbled cautiously at it, then passed
it to a friend to taste. He tried it, and exclaiming
" It 's meat ! " finished it at a bite. On the whole they
were not ill-mannered, and certainly seemed good-
humoured, as almost all the northern Chinese are.
Soon afterwards we left the stone road, and struck

22 WEEBE aSINESES BBIYE.

into the country. After winding about through fields
and narrow lanes till nearly four o'clock, we found our-
selves suddenly close to the wall of Peking. We
entered the Southern or Chinese City by the Tung-pien
Men, or East Wicket, then turned to the right under
the wall that divides the Northern or Tartar or Inner
City (so many names has it among foreigners) from the
Southern or Outer. Between this wall and what was
intended doubtless for the city moat, but which is now
little better, if any, than a sewer, is a bare tract of sand.
This, I found afterwards, intervenes with but few excep-
tions between the wall and the moat all round the city.
On this occasion I went along it only till I reached the
Ha-ta Men (the " Ha-ta Grate ") where we entered the
Northern City. All the gates of this city are surrounded
by a bastion, in which there is an outer entrance — there
are three in the bastion guarding the Ch'ien Men or
"Front Gate," in the centre of the south wall. After
entering the Tartar City we presently turned to the left
along what is known to the Europeans here as " Lega-
tion Street," past the French and German Legations to
the " Central Imperial Canal Bridge," — ■& bridge formed
of large slabs of stone that once had, but has long
lost, its parapets. It crosses a stream which enters
Peking in the north-west, drains the ornamental waters
of the Imperial City, and flows under the south wall of
the Tartar City into the moat. Along the west bank of
the stream runs a bye-road, north and south — at right
angles to Legation Street consequently — and in this
stands the British Legation.

23

II. EuEOPEAN Peking : Early Duties.

I DO not mean to inflict on you a long and elaborate
description of the city of Peking, or show erudition by
an historical sketch in which Marco Polo and Sir George
Staunton shall figure largely. (To be honest, I might,
if I were sure of my dates.) It will be sufficient to
remind you that the city is built with its walls facing the
four points of the compass, and that all the main streets
and nearly- all the M-t'ungs, or alleys, are parallel to the
walls : in other words, run either north and south, or
east and west. This has an important bearing on life
in Peking, as it considerably simplifies the problem
of how to find one's way about.

I said just now that the British Legation faces a
bye-road running north along the so-called Imperial
Canal. This last had once a substantial stone em-
bankment ; but that has fallen down in many parts,
or been covered up, and now in the dry season the
canal is a succession of filthy pools, dwindling daily,
and exposing the mud and refuse that have accumu-
lated there for years. In the rainy season, or when the
flood-gates are opened to draw off the water from the

24 WHERE GBINE8E8 DRIVE.

Imperial City, it is a little better ; but there is never
much current and always plenty of mud. The half-dozen
Peking ducks which BUerby had rashly promised to escort
down south used to swim about in this canal, his boy
and coolie relieving guard over them. EUerby was
much exercised about these ducks and the proper way to
take them down the river. I am afraid to say how many
treatises on natural history and the rearing of poultry
he got through at this time : but he finally left, uncer-
tain whether the right thing was to tie string to the
ducks and let them swim down behind his house-boat,
or to keep them in a pen on board, and land at intervals
to give them walking exercise.

Some 600 yards north of the Central Bridge is
another, known as the "Northern Imperial Canal
Bridge," and it is between these, with a frontage of from
300 to 350 yards, that the British Legation stands.
The compound forms an oblong of which the shorter
side is about 130 yards long. On the north it is shut in
by the Han-lin CoUege ; on. the west for the greater part
of its length by the Liian-i K'u, or, as we called it, the
"Imperial Carriage Park." South of this, still on the
western side, is a bare space occupied in winter by Mon-
gol traders, and known in consequence as the " Mongol
Market." On the south side, a congeries of little Chi-
nese shops. The whole is surrounded by a massive
wall, which on the west, as being the wall of the Car-
riage Park and enclosing Imperial ground, is topped
with yellow tiles. The principal gate of the Legation
is in the centre of the eastern side, facing the canal.
The gate-house has an upper story surmounted by a

EUROPEAN PEKING: EABLY DUTIES. 25

flag-staff, and carrying the royal arms — the object of
much admiring criticism on the part of stray Mongols
and others, whom I have seen standing for many minutes
gazing at them.

Entering the gate, on the right-hand are houses for
the escort, of whom there are at present four, three of
them married ; on the left, the Second Secretaries'
house, shaped like a gnomon. The complement of the
gnomon is a lawn surrounded by a privet hedge. But
lawn and hedge have both a somewhat intermittent
appearance, in spite of all the care bestowed upon
them. For grass will not grow in Peking, and the
genius of the country is opposed to hedging. Close to
the northern end of the lawn is a sun-dial, erected by
Sir Edward Malet, whose name it bears. Beyond it
is a well, and right opposite these — quite against the
rules of fing-shui, the Chinese say — is the series of
pavilions or halls that lead up to the Minister's
residence.

This, with its approaches and out-buildings, occupies
nearly a quarter of the Legation, and is the most stri-
king feature of it. It faces south, as I have said, and is
consequently at right angles to the gate. The whole
of the northern part of the Legation was, before it was
made over for the use of the British Minister after the
campaign of 1860, the fu, or mansion of the Duke
Liang. (It is now known as Ying-kuo Fu, 'the
English fu,' but it is still sometimes described by its
old name of Liang-kung Fu, ' the fu of Duke Liang.')
Most of the main buildings, with the entrance-halls and
paviUons, were preserved, and either restored, or adapted

26 WHEBE CHINESES BBIVR

to the requirements of a modern house. And so it
comes that the two outer pavilions I spoke of above are
altogether Chinese, though they are kept in a state of
repair seldom seen in Chinese buildings. They consist
each of two side walls of stone supporting the tent-like
roof of tiles so characteristic of Chinese architecture.
The tiles in this case are grey but with a border of
green : the ridge of the roof too is green, and the
whole is supported by wooden pillars, plastered, and
painted vermilion. But the chief beauty of the pavi-
lions is the wonderful emblazoning of the eaves. These
are coloured in red and gold and green and dead blue,
and do not look in the least gaudy, but altogether in
harmony with the general design. They are protected
from sparrow and swallow by an almost invisible wire
netting. Through the pavilions runs a raised pathway
of stone, to the foot of a flight of steps that lead up to
the reception-room. On each side of the outer pavilion
is placed a huge stone lion. Standing between these
and looking towards the Minister's house, the full effect
of this beautiful approach is seen ; for the level of the
floor of the first pavilion is a little higher than that of
the second, and this again than the ground.

Properly there should be side buildings at right
angles to these halls ; but one of these has been replaced
by a house for the escort, and one, that on the west,
by the chapel, a small, not very ornamental erection.
Opposite the chapel is a house, now occupied by the
doctor ; behind this, again, is the Chinese Secretary's
house. The path, or road — for it is broad enough to
be called so — between the doctor's quarters and the

EJJBOPEAN PEKING: EARLY DUTIES. 27

chapel, runs south, past the Assistant Chinese Secre-
tary's garden, the accountant's house, the Uttle surgery
and the stables, to the office, 6r Chancellerie, as it was
called on State occasions. South of the office is the
house of the First Secretary.

This portion of the compound has changed hands
several times. In 1861 it was squatted upon* by some
Prussian diplomatists, greatly to the distress of the
Chinese Government, who insisted on their leaving
Peking at once. The representatives of the then
Treaty Powers offered to vouch for the respectability of
Prussia as a country, but the Chinese insisted; and
the Prussians finally left with the understanding, pre-
sently embodied in their treaty, that they were not to
return for five years. The site was then purchased by
the British Government for $5,000 and occupied by
Mr. Lockhart's Missionary Hospital. A few years later,
the hospital was removed to the Ha-ta Men Street, and
the Prussians (or rather Germans) came back, to pre-
sently transfer themselves and their new Legation to
the much more spacious quarters which they now
occupy on the south side of Legation Street. For the
northern half of the British Legation, a rent of 1,600
taels, or between £400 and £600, is paid into the
Tsung-li Yamen (the Chinese Foreign Office) every year.
It is the duty of the senior student to make this pay-
ment, and, in order that he might appear at the Yamen
respectably attired, a box-hat was, it is said, provided
sometime about 1861, and is still at his disposal. But
it is not often worn.

* See Dr. Eennie, Peking and Pekingese, vol. i. pp. 237-39.

28 WHERE OHINESES DRIVE.

North of the doctor's house is the Fives Court.
From this, under the wall of the Carriage Park, runs
the Bowling Alley. Opposite the Fives Court, again,
is a converted Chinese building, now divided into a
billiard-room, a reading-room, and a small stage.
North of this are the garden and buildings of the
Students' Quarters.

The Quarters consist of a long row facing south,
having an upper story, and containing ten sets of
rooms, five above and five below. The whole block is
in the common style of foreign architecture out here,
with verandah and balcony. Each set consists of a
sitting-room about fourteen feet by ten, with a small
store-closet, a bed-room, say ten feet square, and a bath-
room. In the upper rooms the store-closet becomes a
cupboard, the bath-room being lengthened to allow the
door to open on the stair-head. There is a stern dis-
regard of ornament in the interiors at any rate, but
they were comfortable enough on the whole. The par-
tition walls might have been thicker, but they were
better than the lath and plaster affairs in the old
quarters. There they used to request you to draw the
charges of your revolver before you began to work, lest
you should take to relieving your bewildered brain and
suppressed energy by sending a bullet through the
rooms, as one man did. They explained that such
conduct was apt to make them nervous and to unsettle
their minds.

For some men's minds are so easily unsettled.
Horton, like the poet Gray, had a dread of fire that
commended itself to the funsters of his day. He was

jEUBOPEAN PEKING: EABLT DUTIES. 29

awakened one dark winter's night by a banging at his
door, accompanied by an evil smell, as of things burning,
and a crescendo yell of " Fire ! " He rushed barefoot into
the passage, and was met by a sudden flame and cries
of " Up-stairs, for your life ! " so flew up-stairs, his
night-shirt — for he had not then approved pyjamas —
streaming behind him and flapping against his shanks.
Arrived at the end of the balcony, the cold (there were
twenty-four degrees of frost that night), and a quarter
of an hour's reflection, made him consider that after all
it was somewhat feeble to come up-stairs, seeing that it
is the nature of fire to ascend ; so he fearfully made his
way down again. There, seeing no signs of fire, he
sadly went back to his warm bed. He waded through a
heap of charred brown paper to his door, only to find
it locked ... It took Horton and the coolie and his boy
nearly half an hour to effect a burglarious entry through
his bath-room window : but it will take a whole brigade
and at least one hose to persuade him to leave his bed
again in any undue hurry.

The only furniture supplied us is, in the bed-room, a
bed (a capital one), a chest of drawers (with a looking-
glass), and a wash-hand stand ; in the sitting-room,
three cane-bottomed office chairs. This being so, the
new student has to look about for means and ways of
procuring furniture. If he has come just after a senior
man has left, he can take over the latter's movables,
and both are fortunate. Otherwise, the new comer will
have to be content for the present with a Chinese table,
a square awkward much-varnished thing, and meanwhile
haunt any auctions that may be going on. These are

80 WEEBE CSINESES BBIVE.

pretty frequent, though, as the European population of
Peking is continually shifting. The only drawback to
attendance at the sales is the number of Chinese present,
who loll about on the arm-chairs and smoke and make
the atmosphere oppressive. It is true they are bona fide
bidders, but that is no consolation when you have
resolved to buy some bath or coal-scuttle, and an obese
old Chinaman, who really cannot want them for himself,
runs you up.

But certainly there is one advantage to be got from
allowing Chinamen to buy at auctions. They will pur-
chase any number of odds and ends on the chance of
selling them again piecemeal ; and very often you can
get a pair of boots or a dozen tins of marmalade much
more cheaply at one of the native shops than you could
hope to do at a European store, and in quite as good
condition.

When several men come to Peking at the same time,
as they all want pretty much the same things, and feel
that it would be a waste of energy and dollars to run
one another up, they usually toss or cut for choice. But
chance is too often blind, and an aesthetic man gets let
in for a pair of faded green curtains and a lumbering
chest of drawers the auctioneer calls a " secretary,"
while the casual Philistine does the bidding for a dainty
five o'clock tea-table which he and his pipe will utterly
spoil in a week. The furniture market fluctuated a
good deal. At one time there would be a run on desks,
till the carpenter caused a glut by over-stocking : then
arm-chairs would be at a premium and fetch amazing
prices. So great was the demand once that a disap-

EUBOPBAN PEKING: EABLY DUTIES. 31

pointed bidder would hasten to secure the reversion of a
chair in case the owner should leave Peking before him.
It was not perhaps altogether pleasant for the owner,
who, whenever the other man called to see that the
property was not being knocked about too much, would
feel like a tenant for life in the presence of the heir-at-
law, and look around uneasily for an antimacassar.

A decade ago the students found life monotonous, and
took to frequenting auctions, thereby, as they said,
doing a kindness to the vendors and encouraging trade
generally. Their habit was to run the things cheerfully
up, and when they had reached a fair market value, to
gracefully retire. Thompson and Newnham were the
most constant in their attendance, and displayed the
greatest enthusiasm and energy. But in time it came
to pall even on them. One day Thompson went round
to the sale of the household effects of the Eev. Mr. X.,
about to return to America with his family. Lot 54
was a rocking-horse, a piebald that had lost its tail.
There was someone in the crowd (Thompson could not
see who it was from where he stood) evidently anxious
to get it, and Thompson thought it was his duty— for
the good of the house — to do his best to impress that
individual with a proper sense of its value. So he began
to bid briskly. The other went on outbidding him. At
last, when the thing had reached the respectable sum of
$45", Thompson suddenly desisted. His happiness,
and the consciousness of well-doing, emboldened him,
and when Lot 63 was put up, he started the bidding.
It was for a double perambulator, and, curiously enough,
the same man was bidding against him. Thompson,

32 WHEBE GSINESES BBIYE.

finding the other plainly bent on getting it, ventured to
offer $50°°. It was knocked down to him. As he
turned sadly away from the house he saw Newnham
with a very long face. "Hang it," said Newnham,
" I 've made a fool of myself." Thompson was too de-
pressed to take advantage of the admission ; so Newn-
ham went on, " There was some idiot bidding for a
rocking horse — did you notice it, a battered old thing
without a tail ? I ran him up, of course. And got let
in for it — for for-ty-five dollars ! Deuce take it. But
I had my revenge on the fellow. That perambu-
lator " Thompson looked at him severely, and

they went their several ways.

The result of similar methods of procuring furniture
was a curious and instructive mixture of styles. But
though variety is charming as a general rule, it has its
inconveniences at times. I was sitting in my room
surrounded by recent purchases when an old resident
called who had lately returned to Peking. After the
usual remarks as to the voyage and my impressions of
China, he looked round the room and began: "Ire-
member that chair when I was here last — in '70 wasn't
it ? It belonged to poor Jackson. You 've heard of
Jackson ? No ? Cut his throat on it. I always said
he was crazy. Why ..." [Sundry reminiscences of
Jackson's eccentric conduct on occasion]. . . . "And
you 've got that book-case of Keary's ! I knew it by
the scar : that's where Zeary set fire to it. Found him
one day with his furniture piled up in the middle of the
room (now I come to think of it, I believe it was this
very room). He sat on the top of the heap with a

EUBOPEAN PUKING: EABLY DUTIES. 33

match-box. Said he was going to cremate himself, but
the idiotic thing wouldn't light. He was a queer fellow,
Keary. A little off his head, perhaps ..." [Several
stories tending to cast doubts on Keary's sanity] . . .
" That desk was Lovell's . . . ." I may be over-
sensitive, and it may not be the fact that the study of
Chinese tends to madness or suicide : but I do not
care to have my furniture used like the name of
Charles XII., and by any casual visitor too. Besides,
it gets depressing in time. For the future I shall
buy everything brand-new.

But, seriously, it would be a great convenience if the
Government, or someone in the Consular Service, would
start some system of providing furniture for the rooms
of, at any rate, the junior members of the Service,
whether at Peking or at the ports. There are several
methods in vogue at the Universities, for instance,
almost any one of which might be tried. Perhaps on
the whole the best system is that by which a yearly
payment would be made by the occupier to cover the
interest on the original outlay and depreciation in value
of the furniture. Or if the original outlay were under-
taken by the first occupant, it might be arranged that
he should hand over the furniture to his successor at
the original cost, minus so much per cent, per annum for
depreciation. For convenience sake this last might be
fixed at a uniform rate of say 10 per cent. The present
system, or rather want of it, is a great trial to a new-
comer, and the cheerless appearance of his bare rooms
most woefully depressing.

But this talk about auctions and furniture had nearly

3

34 WHEBU GSmmES BBI7E.

made me forget that I left off in the middle of my
description of the Students' Quarters, I was saying
that the row of buildings which contained our rooms
faced the south. It formed the north side of a small
garden, on the west of which stood our Mess-room and
Library : the latter the upper story of the former.
The Mess-room was in conception a good room, but it
always had a tendency to look dingy. I do not know
why. It was fairly large : indeed, we once contrived to
sit down forty to dinner. But that required care and a
general clearing out of excrescences, such as stoves and
sideboards. It was not often that our sideboard was
removed ; and even when it was unanimously resolved
that we should have a blue dado carried round the wall
(O'Hara had designed a stencil plate in the Greek pat-
tern), the workman respected the sideboard. When
O'Hara, with honest pride, introduced us to the dado,
som6 carping critic discovered that the Chinese artist
had carefully followed the lines of the top of the side-
board with a kind of blue aureole. He wanted to have
the thing moved, and let us take in the situation com-
pletely, and know the worst. But we thought it would
pain O'Hara too much, and forbore. And so the side-
board remains a fixture.

The Library was reached from the Mess-room by a
side door opening on a flight of stairs. (We used to
keep the Mess beer-barrel under this staircase, till some-
one suggested that it would be more satisfactory to have
it under our eyes ; besides, it would be handier to get
at. So we moved it, and its successors, into the Mess-
room.) I believe the architect intended the Library to

EUBOPBAN PEKING : EABLY DUTIES. 35

be used as a drawing-room, but in these latter days it
was very seldom used at all. For one thing, it was
bare and' cheerless ; and when we did make use of it,
there had to be a general contribution of arm-chairs,
tables, rugs, lamps, pictures, to produce at best a ficti-
tious appearance of permanent comfort. On the east
was a balcony ; on the west, three windows overlooking
the Carriage Park. Eound the walls were ranged some
old book-shelves. The books had to all appearance
been sent out in a lump by some stationer anxious to
clear off his superfluous stock, and little interest, conse-
quently, could be taken in them. Two classes excepted :
the volumes given by Sir Rutherford Alcock in, I think,
1869, and the books on Chinese subjects. The former
(they included many novels) were read and enjoyed ; the
latter were read — some of them. This last division of
the Library was very deficient. The greater part of the
books were old tomes, such as L'Histoire des Huns or
the volumes of Du Mailla ; very few of more recent
date than the first Chinese war, none, I think (except a
single copy of Williams's Dictionary), than the second.
This state of things seemed rather anomalous : for we
believed that one object held in view by the founders of
the Library was to assist us in our work. We were very
rash in our judgments of men and things in those
days.

Under these circumstances a certain degree of apathy
regarding the Library and its contents was not altogether
unnatural, perhaps. We were required to appoint a
Librarian, but his election proceeded on much the same
lines as a Dutch auction. Gordon at last consented to

3 *

36 WHEBE CHWESES DRIVE.

accept the office on condition that all rules were at once
abolished, and that he was never called on to read any
of the books. He received the thanks of the electors,
and entered on his duties there and then. Our pre-
decessors were not enthusiastic, we believe, at least not
on this point : circumstances were too strong for them,
perhaps. Occasionally, it is true, a man of zeal would
arise and drav7 up catalogues and frame rules ; but he
was not shunned or avoided on that account. People
regarded him as a very harmless sort of lunatic.

Ashton used to hold strong opinions on the immo-
rality of borrowing books and not returning them,
Fawcett had come round to his rooms to ask him to
lend him Williams's Middle Kingdom, as he had lost his
own. " I know, Jack," said Ashton, as he handed him
the book, " that you '11 let me have it back. You 're not
one of those fellows who look on a friend's book as
though it were an umbrella, and annex it, and say
nothing about it, but just keep it to fill up their own
shelves. You see," he explained, " I have a place for
all my books, and if one is lost it spoils the general
effect." Fawcett said he agreed with him, and took the
book. Then Ashton said, " If you don't mind, I '11
just write my name in it." Fawcett opened the book at
the fly-leaf, but Ashton did not write his name. Because
there was another name there already. It was " John
Fawcett, with his Father's best wishes."

Gordon as Librarian did not wholly neglect the sphere
of his official duties. On one occasion he gave a chil-
dren's party in the Library ; on another, with O'Hara
as joint host, a dance. One of the Foreign Ministers

EVBOPEAN PEEING : EARLY BVTIES. 37

honoured both with his presence, and, among the chil-
dren, gracefully sank his plenipotential dignity, and
joined con amore in blind man's buff and hunt the
slipper. The ball (in Grordon's presence we thought it
more polite to give it a courtesy title) was understood to
have been a great success, and we have sunned ourselves
since in Gordon's reflected lustre. In fact, we have
come to be rather proud of that ball, and to think it
highly creditable to the students as a body. In former
times such things were of no account, from their fre-
quent occurrence ; but we were the products of a later
and a sadder age. We could not trip it lightly : we
were grave and sombre, and therefore the better pleased
to be gay by proxy.

On first joining the Mess the student pays an entrance
fee of $25*'. We contracted with the cook to supply us
with breakfast, tiffin, and dinner at 50 cents — Is. lOd.
or Is. lO^d. — a day. All stores, such as condiments,
jellies, tea, coffee, we provided ourselves : in regard to
wine, each man had a separate account with the cellar.
One of us acted as caterer, and another looked after the
wine. Our cellar was a small out-house adjoining the
kitchen. Just before Paley came up it had fallen in,
and annihilated and otherwise spoilt 300 dollars' worth
of wine. So a new and more trustworthy cellar was
built, and Paley elected wine-caterer to fill it. His
method was simple. He wrote to three or four wine
merchants for their lists, combined them skilfully, and
ordered a dozen of each kind. His selection was not
approved of by the other students : they thought that
twelve bottles of vin ordinaire would not go very far,

S8 WHEBE GHINE8E8 DRIVE.

and they said that unless some miracle were to be
wrought in their favour, such as the sudden and prema-
ture retirement of all the consuls and most of the senior
assistants, they hardly felt justified in drinking Tokay.
Paley reluctantly abandoned his idea in its integrity,
and altered it to suit their narrower views. It is, as he
says, the fate of most great men to be misunderstood,
and no one is a hero to his fellow-students.

Mess bills, which on an average were some twenty-
six dollars a month, were payable at sight ; for the mess-
caterer would lie in wait for men who had just drawn
their dollars, and so effect a prompt settlement. Indeed,
it was a positive relief to pay him : for eighty or ninety
of the clumsy coins are not the sort of thing you can
take pride or pleasure in carrying about — at least, not
for more than ten minutes or so. After that they
become burdensome.

But the new comer had other duties more formidable
and no less pressing than paying dollars — paying calls,
for instance. Everyone under the rank of a Minister
is expected on his arrival at Peking to call on all the
European residents in turn. But, if he is new to the
north, this often amounts to a positive hardship. He
is only too willing to make the acquaintance of the
people among whom he will spend in all probability the
next two years ; but unless he can find some old resident
with leisure and kindness enough to act as guide, he
must trust to a boy or coolie to show him the way. In
this case the coolie will be instructed in his own
tongue by someone, and will drag the poor victim
about from place to place, leaving cards, or seeing

EUBOPUAN PEKING: EARLY DUTIES. 39

people whose names he does not know. O'Hara got
into trouble soon after coming up. He says, " It was
the second day of my call-making, and I met on the
way a lady, who said, ' I 'm so sorry, Mr. O'Hara,
that I was not at home when you called.' I did not
know her from Adam — Eve, I mean : but I ran over
in my mind the list of those I had called on, and
suggested timidly, ' Mrs. X. ? ' She answered, coldly,
' I am Mrs. Z.' It seems the X.s and Z.s were not on
speaking terms ; but how was I to have known that ?
Besides, I was on my way, as I believed, to visit the
Z.s, and, in my confusion, I said so. Thereon she ob-
served, severely, as she turned away, ' Well, I suppose
you know best, Mr. O'Hara, whom you have called on,'
which was unreasonable, now, wasn't it? as I most
obviously didn't."

I think some enterprising publisher ought to draw up
a " Guide to Calling at Peking and the Ports," accom-
panied by maps of each place. As thus : —

Peeing.

Start in the Chiao-min Hsiang (' Legation Street')
East, and call —

Chinese address
Place. and name. Eesidents.

1. Netherlands Legation Ho-lan kuo Fu V " ' 'i

2. French Legation . . Fa kuo Fu . .V ' " '\

and so on. The Chinese address and the Chinese name
of the visitee should be given according to the local

40 WHEBE OHINESHS BBIVIl.

pronunciation, and the Chinese characters appended, for
convenience in inquiring your way about, or for sending
messages. Attached to the scheme must be a clear and
detailed account of the shortest way to call on every-
body. Also, the number of hours, or days, it vfIU
take.

The roads in Peking are always muddy when they
are not dusty, and offer little inducement to go afoot.
Moreover, the distances from place to place are great,
and the carts mere instruments of torture. Therefore
it is almost necessary, and always advisable, to keep a
pony. A large number of unkempt, untrained beasts
are brought down every year from Mongolia. The most
promising, as a rule, go on to Tientsin or Shanghai, or
still further south, where, if they seem likely to turn
out racers, they will fetch a good price. But besides
ponies in the rough (literally — 'for a Chinaman never
clips his pony, or cuts mane or tail), the new comer will
probably find one or two for sale that have been owned
and trained by foreigners. The height of these ponies
varies from 12.2 to 13.3, and, as a rule, they are sturdy
and sure-footed, and can do a great deal of work. Their
price varies considerably. An ordinary, unambitious
pony can be bought at from twenty-five to forty dollars ;
a racer will cost, in Peking, from fifty to a hundred.

O'Hara was rather unfortunate in his ponies. He
had not much experience in the way of horse-flesh, he
said, except on donkey-back at Suez on the way out ;
so he thought it as well to secure a mild -tempered
beast to begin experimenting on. The mdfoo — the
groom — received orders accordingly ; and a pony was

EUBOPJEAN PSEING : EABLY DUTIES. 41

bought. Then O'Hara arrayed himself in full costume,
and, with many misgivings, mounted. Some four or
five of us were riding in single file down Legation
Street, O'Hara modestly bringing up the rear. Just as
we were passing the French Legation, we heard an
exclamation, not loud, but undeniably deep, and, turn-
ing, saw O'Hara standing on the ground, one foot on
each side of the pony. The situation seemed to suit
the pony better than O'Hara, for it was sound asleep.
We woke the beast up, and went on. And all that
afternoon we had to stop every half-mile or so to arouse
that mild- tempered pony to a consciousness of his duty;
until O'Hara, in despair, said it was no use resisting
the inevitable, and he would wait. We left him seated
on a bank, gloomily contemplating things in general,
while the pony slumbered contentedly at his feet.

He got used to the beast's sleepiness by degrees, but
he complained it came over him at such odd times, in
the middle of a gentle canter, for instance, and then it
had a tendency to make him look undignified. So he
sold the pony at last to the Chinese equivalent for a
marine store-dealer, and purchased an animal of spirit.
But he never appeared on this beast in public. It was
three weeks before the pony allowed him to get into the
saddle, and another month before he consented to his
staying there. O'Hara used to practise riding him in
the Mongol Market, with a huge sun-helmet on his
head. He explained that the market was full of soft
places where a tumble was really enjoyable, and, with a
sun-helmet on, he rather preferred to dismount head
first than otherwise. It saved time. He spent half an

42 WHERE GHINE8E8 DRIVE.

hour trying to persuade Chapman to adopt that mode of
getting down in future, and offered to lend him his sun-
helmet. But Chapman said he thought the old-fashioned
way suited him better. Then O'Hara called him a
bigoted anti-progressionist, and left. He has that sun-
helmet still, and points proudly to the numerous dents
as to so many honourable scars. Each is to be labelled
(like the alpenstock of the Swiss tourist) with name,
date, and approximate cause of accident ■ — as thus :
' Legation Street, Jan. 30th, cart ; ' ' Mongol Market,
Feb. 1st, dog ' — until its general appearance closely
resembles the plaster cast in the window of a consulting
phrenologist.

It is very difficult to persuade Peking ponies to run
abreast : they very much prefer to go in single file.
This idea was so firmly rooted in the mind of my beast
that he was for a long time almost useless for racing
purposes. It was not that he could not go, but he was
accustomed to have another beast in front of him. And
so, when started abreast of a pony, he would look round
with a dissatisfied air, and, on seeing the other, take the
first opportunity of getting behind him. After that he
would plough along contentedly enough, his nose in his
rival's tail.

I suppose the habit is contracted in the crowded
streets or narrow alleys of the city ; but it is necessary
sometimes in the country too, though not ■ always
agreeable, even there, Paley was riding through a rice-
field one day with four other men. The path, the
usual raised bank, was not broad enough to allow
them to go abreast ; so they went in single file, Paley

EUROPEAN PEKING: EARLY DUTIES. 43

leading, and, as was his humour, at a gallop. Pre-
sently he caught sight of a coal-basket on the path
in front, and prepared for a shy. Being forewarned
he kept his seat ; but to the rest the coal-basket came
as a matter of surprise, Paley says the movement
they executed could not have been done better if they
had practised it for months. The first man went
head-foremost into the paddy on the right, the second
head-foremost into the paddy on the left ; the third man
was shot on the top of the first, and the fourth on the
top of the second. They might have been in a four-
oar. No. 3 kept his eyes on stroke's back, and got his
hands out sharp ; but bow, as Paley observed severely,
was a little late. Yet they did not seem to enter into
the humour of the thing, somehow, and were rather
dull company, Paley complained, for the rest of that
afternoon.

Fawcett's pony was, like mine, the creature of habit.
The contemplative side of Buddhism had great attractions
for him, and whenever a yearning that way came over
him, he would stand still and contemplate for a quarter
of an hour or so. Fawcett did not mind this so much ;
but "when the contemplation was over, the pony made
a point of rolling on the ground three or four times —
apparently to relieve the tension of his mind. On
these occasions Fawcett usually got off. But one day
after the summer rains, just as they were crossing a
swollen stream, the pony suddenly began to contem-
plate. On this occasion Fawcett did not get off — at
least, not .very well. He still ascribes six grey hairs
and a tendency to rheumatism to his distress of mind

44 WEBBE CHINE8E8 DRIVE.

at the time, and his subsequent ride home. And his
disUke to approach running water on pony-back is
almost hydrophobic.

There are stables attached to the Legation for some
twenty ponies, and one of the escort men will provide
provender. The present rate for this is twenty-five
cents a day (about lid.) — exactly double what it was
eight years ago, I am told. The services of a groom,
or mafoo, are usually shared between two men — or,
perhaps, it would be better to say, two ponies : as those
of us who kept two ponies monopolised a mafoo. He,
the mafoo, is paid six dollars a month ; so that the cost
of keeping a pony was some eleven dollars a month, or
a little over forty shillings. Of course, it always hap-
pened that there were incidental expenses -or the
mafoo made out that there were. I rode my pony one
summer only four times in the course of a month, and
the mafoo sent in a bill for $1.50, declaring he
had been shod thrice. This is the worst of Chinese
servants : they will " squeeze " you — get a big com-
mission out of all purchases — and they have no sense
of shame. And this brings me to a still more neces-
sary undertaking on the part of a new comer than the
choice of a pony, namely the choosing of a " boy."

" Boy " is the term in vogue among foreigners in
China for a body-servant. Of course the word has
been attacked by philologists, who are never content to
accept the obvious " birth and parentage " of a word, but
must be looking for a strawberry mark somewhere : it
is probably nothing more or less than it appears at first
sight to be. The boy has charge of your rooms, and is

EUROPEAN PUKING: E ABLY DUTIES. 45

responsible if anything is missing from them. But as
he only draws some six or eight dollars a month, it
would be a hopeless task to try and recover from him
the value of what is lost or stolen. Consequently it is
usual to make all the other servants in the establish-
ment secure him, so that when anything is missing,
the value of it is divided among them. This they re-
cognise as perfectly fair, and agree to readily enough :
they share the risks in the certainty of sharing the
booty. A foreigner strolled into a Chinese store some-
where down south, and was persuaded by the shop-
keeper to try some sherry he had bought at a sale. The
wine proved to be Manzanilla, and excellent of its kind,
so the foreigner ordered a case or two to be sent to his
house. That evening a friend was dining with him, and
he mentioned his purchase, saying that the wine was
really quite equal to some he had imported himself
from Europe a month or two before. The boy was told
to bring a bottle. The guest sipped it once, and then,
his politeness and his regard for truth impelling him
different ways, put it sadly down and sat silent. Then
his host tried it, and raved at the boy. The boy took
the bottle away and brought another. This was dis-
tinctly good, but the man thought the whole proceeding
strange, and, though, as he said, he was not accustomed
to bother much about things, resolved to overhaul his
cellar. When he did, he found the boy had been in the
habit of selling his wine to Chinese dealers and replacing
it with a decoction of his own. The boy has since left
that port for fresh fields.

We were no safer in Peking. One night, just as it

46 WHERE CHINESES BBIVE.

was getting light, Burnett was awakened by a noise in
his sitting-room. He sang out, " Who 's there ? " in
Chinese, and was answered in EngUsh, " Boy." This
seemed satisfactory, and he turned over and went to
sleep again. In the morning he found that not only
his ' curios,' but even his curtains had been carried off,
and, though the guilt could not be brought home to any
particular man, with the evident connivance of some of
the servants. On another occasion the thieves were more
honest. They broke into the store closet -in one man's
room and carried off all his tea and sugar, but — appa-
rently with some rudimentary notions of the difference
between exchange and robbery — left in their place three
large pots of jam. It was never discovered where the jam
had come from, but I am told it was exceedingly good.
There is a watch in the Legation, as there is in most
places and houses of any importance in China. Up
till midnight or so, the watchmen go round singly,
carrying a patched old lantern, and a small wooden
instrument like a trough, about a foot long and four
inches deep, with a handle at right angles to it. This
they strike with a small stick to mark the number of the
watch. The night is divided by the Chinese into five
watches, which vary in length with the time of the
year : the sum of the watches being the time between
sunset and sunrise. In the Carriage Park, which, as I
said, was next to the Quarters, several men beat the
rounds together, and made a great fuss over it, tending
to keep people unaccustomed to the noise awake and
ill-tempered. After midnight the watchmen in the
Legation should, I believe, go about in pairs, one with

EUROPEAN PEKING: EAELT DUTIES. 4>7

a lantern, the other with a spear. I speak as a scribe
in this matter, though. Anyhow, there is a story that
the man in front once found the back gate of the Lega-
tion open, and was so struck by the fact, that he
dropped his lantern and fled. The other man thought
he was an unauthorised intruder, and was going for
him ; but he explained things, and then they went toge-
ther to the escort man, whose house was near the gate,
and roused him to an interest in the affair. When he
came to look more carefully into it, he found that most
of his possessions had departed with the thieves — his
new uniform among them. But burglaries were, on the
whole, happily rare. Once, indeed, thieves had the
hardihood to try and get into the strong-room, and,
being foiled by the lock, had apparently attempted to
remove the door bodily.

Such clumsy methods as this, though, do not com-
mend themselves to a Chinaman; at least, not to a
southerner. A case of theft from an hotel was up before
the Hong-Kong Criminal Court, I believe, it was. The
complainant had lost his watch, and gave evidence that
he had left it on the dressing-table when he went to
bed. The hotel-keeper declared he was not liable, in-
asmuch as the plaintiff ought to have put it under his
pillow. "Nonsense," exclaimed the judge, " I always
leave mine in the watch-case at the head of my bed. . . .
In fact," he added, as he felt in his waistcoat-pocket,
" I 've left it there now. I don't see the necessity for
putting it under the pillow. The hotel-keeper is re-
sponsible, undoubtedly." The case ended, the judge
returned home, and was met by his wife.

48 WEEEE GHINESE8 BBIYE.

" My dear, what has possessed you to-day ? Twenty
Chinamen have been round, at the very least, saying
that you wanted your watch, and had left it in the
pocket at the head of your bed."

"What ! " exclaimed the judge, beginning to feel a
little uncomfortable. " Well, what did you do ? "

" Why," answered the lady simply, " I gave it to the
first of them, of course."

There is a certain analogy between this and a story
current along the coast. The Chief Justice of Hong-
Kong was trying a case in court, and had just com-
menced his summing-up. He was suddenly aware of
a slight commotion in the court-room, and, looking up
from his notes, saw a coolie carrying a ladder. He
paused, and glared at the intruder : then sent the inter-
preter to inquire his business. The coolie said he had
come to fetch the clock away for repairs. The Chief
Justice had not noticed much the matter with it ; and,
anyway, why come for it at such an inconvenient time ?
Meanwhile, the coolie carefully adjusted his ladder,
mounted it with great deliberation, one step at a time,
and proceeded to slowly unfasten the clock. The Chief
Justice chafed visibly at the delay, until at last he lost
patience, rose, and ordered clock and man to be turned
out of court. The coolie deposited his ladder — one
attached to the premises — in the yard, wrapped the
clock up carefully in a blue cotton handkerchief, thrust
a stick through the bundle, and went slowly down the
street. Days passed, and nothing more was seen of
clock or coolie. In fact, nothing has been seen of either
up to the present, and, as they have both been absent for

EVBOPBAN PEKING: EARLY DUTIES. 49

some years now, the probability is, nothing will. The
Chief Justice, however, never afterwards encouraged
larceny in open court.

I think, on the whole, that the China boy (to come
back to him) is fairly honest : he expects to make a
profit on everything he buys for you, it is true, but a
European servant could hardly cast the first stone here,
perhaps, and, besides, this is strictly in accordance with
Chinese customs. If a place is to be found in the
scale of domestic servancy (' servitude ' would convey a
false impression quite — except of the condition of the
masters) for the "boy," he would certainly rank degrees
above the scout or gyp : he is cleaner and tidier, and
only abuses you behind your back. If you have a wine
on, he cannot listen (or understand, if he does) and
carry reports to the dean's staircase that may be pro-
ductive of disharmony. And you have a pull over him
that you certainly have not over the other. You have
missed a bottle or two of wine. You call the boy and
ask for the wine. He says you have drunk it, and
brings the empty bottles in proof. You, feeling certain
that you have not, say so, and cut his wages to the
amount stolen. But suppose it is a scout in question.
Hint that you are inclined to think that he must be
mistaken, and, unless you are prepared to apologise, and
" come down handsome," you'll get a lawyer's letter,
threatening you with an action for defamation of cha-
racter, or half-a-dozen other statutable offences. I am
convinced that we do these things better in China. I
am not prejudiced against cheap labour or the heathen.

Indeed, some boys will do a great deal for their

4

50 WEEBE GHINE8E8 DRIVE.

masters, waiting on them when suffering from an infec-
tious fever with a careful attention that could hardly be
surpassed. Such devotion — for only misanthropes or
those one-idea'd people who prefer to take a worn-out
epigram as a safe rule to judge men's (and especially
Chinamen's) conduct by, would style it anything else —
is often called for by kindness shown them in such
ways as Chinese most appreciate. Wang san was an
orphan, and had entered EUerby's service when only
thirteen. EUerby felt for his desolate condition, and
had him adopted by his head coolie. And when EUerby
went home two years later, and proposed to take Wang
san with him, he thought it would tend to keep him
more steady if he were engaged ; and the adopted father
and head coolie received orders accordingly. A little
orphan girl of fourteen or so was selected, and all
arranged. Just before they left, the boy came to
EUerby and asked for ten dollars. EUerby observed
that it was a large sum to want all at once : what was
he going to do with it ? Wang san hesitated a little,
then said it was for his father. EUerby afterwards
asked the head coolie, who laughed, and said that
Wang san had given him eight dollars, it was true :
the other two went to buy presents for his betrothed, to
console her for his going away.

Wang san was a good boy, but perhaps a Uttle care-
less. It was his duty to see that good water was sup-
plied for drinking purposes at his master's, and this duty
should have been light, as there was a very fair well not
far off. But the water at EUerby's was not good. One
day, as we were playing billiards, we thought we had

EUROPEAN PEEING: EABLY DUTIES. 51

penetrated the mystery. We saw Wang san going
jauntily away from the well with an old kerosine tin on
his shoulder, into which his pigtail dipped as he walked.
Then EUerby explained to Wang san the prejudices
Westerns had against kerosine taken internally, and
requested him to keep his queue more under control.
The fondness the Chinese have for using up old tins and
bottles is sometimes carried to excess. These relics,
by the bye, the boy considers his perquisite, and makes
a good thing out of them by selling them to the dealers
in second-hand European goods. There is one such
shop close to the Central Canal Bridge, where you may
see whole rows of jam-pots or butter- tins, and, invading
the footpath, an occasional bath or old lamp.

The arrangement by which, as in the case of Wang
san and the head coolie, father and son are both ser-
vants in the same house, has much to recommend it.
The Chinese father has a firm belief in personal correc-
tion, and the son, from force of habit, submits to be
belaboured for any peccadillo. Paley took on a new
boy, quite a young fellow, and the son of his coolie.
The first time the boy misbehaved, he was admonished
by Paley ; the second, the coolie was sent for. " Been
behaving badly, has he ? Son of a turtle ! " and he
twisted his left hand firmly in his unhappy offspring's
pigtail. " I '11 just beat him a bit." . . . Paley says
the adroitness and power of concentration he showed
while walking into that boy could only have been
acquired by long practice. After this, the boy's conduct
was most exemplary, as long as his father was coolie.
When he left, the youth showed signs of falling away.

4) *

52

WHERE GHINE8ES DRIVE.

This pained Paley very much, and he at once took mea-
sures to check it : he sent out and secured the services
of the boy's uncle, and thereby, as he said, insured for
the future the harmony of his household.

The boy, as I said, buys everything for you that you
want from the Chinese shops, and sends in his bill at
the end of each month. Here is a specimen : —

Tea (for the Teacher)

Blacking .

Brush and dust-pan

(made of withes)
Duster
Curtain-ring
Eed felt (for window)
Mending clothes
„ pipe .
„ lamp .
Lamp-wick

,, oil (sesame)
Basket
Buttons

Donkeys (hire of)
Lantern .
Hair-cutting
" Peking Gazette "
Bread
Coals

Dollars.

Tiao.

Pai.

£

•

s.

d.

_

3

lOf

—

3

—

—

—

lOf

2

H

—

2

3

—

—

1

1

10

3

—

1

—

—

—

3f

—

3

—

—

—

10^

—

6

1

18

—

—

1

8*
3i

__

___

6

—

1

—

—

,_

3f

—

7

—

—

2

2f

. —

7

—

—

2

2}

—

5

—

—

1

n

—

2

—

—

—

n

—

8

—

—

2

6

—

2

—

—

—

n

8

—

1

9

4

8

81

3

2

14

3i

The bills were all written in Chinese, and naturally
unintelligible to a new comer. But the Chinese numerals
were soon learnt, and then we used to make the boys
bring a specimen of each item. It made you feel quite
wealthy when you gazed at the array of dust-pans and

EJJBOFEAN PEKING : EARLY DUTIES. 53

dish-cloths and other things he would surround you
with. After a time, fuller knowledge dispensed with
the ceremony.

The tiao is equal to 500 small " cash," or 50 of the
—nominally — larger city cash, one of the most disre-
putable coins ever issued. The value of this, as com-
pared with pure silver — and this is the Chinese standard
— is continually altering, and consequently as the ex-
change rate of Mexican dollars and sycee (pure silver) is
fairly constant, the number of tiao in a dollar varies
too. Of late it has been eleven or twelve, but a few years
ago it was as low as eight, while in 1861 it was as high
as fifteen. The fluctuations in value often seem most
arbitrary, but, as a general rule, any large expenditure
of silver in the palace (as during an Imperial funeral),
will bring down the exchange : the economy said at
present to be practised under the rule of the Empress
Dowager, may account for the high rate that just now
obtains. These are questions for a banker to settle,
but, all the same, the boys keep a sharp look-out, as,
since they are paid in dollars, but buy in cash, any alte-
ration in the rate nearly affects them. We thought of
striking an average, and making say 11|^ (11 tiao 5 pai :
10 pai going to the tiao) the rate for a twelvemonth.
The boys made no objection until the exchange fell
below 11.5 : then there was a chorus of murmurs, and
we finally had to give way.

Generally, the boy is amenable to reason, and if his
charges are too heavy, quietly submits to have them cut
down. Not always. Bertram and two friends went
into the store to have some Chartreuse, and Fortune, in

54 WHERE GEINESE8 BEIYE.

the form of the twirlimigig, decided that Bertram should
pay, not once, but twice. Bertram is a careful man,
and likes to know what he is let in for, so inquired.
" Six glasses at 20 cents, $1.20." Now a whole bottle
only cost $1.50, and, as Bertram pointed out, they
had scarcely drunk a quarter of one. He would, there-
fore, take a new bottle and return those six glasses.
This he accordingly did, taking down half-a-dozen liqueur
glasses from the shelf, and solemnly filling them. The
boy in attendance, however, could not be brought to see
the force of Bertram's argument, and looked despon-
dently at the array of glasses and the two bottles, one of
which Bertram was carefully corking and transferring to
his pocket. Finally he gave way: " But the gentlemen
had eaten sweets — 20 cents' worth." Bertram drew
out his bottle, and slowly filled another glass. After
that he left with the feeling that he had transacted his
business in a manner equally just and satisfactory to
both parties. Nevertheless, they decline to trade on
those terms now at that store, and object to barter in
any form. It does not seem to them to pay.

Boys in Peking may be roughly divided into two
classes : the Pekingese proper and the Tientsinese.
The former class do not, as a rule, understand any
language but their own : the latter speak some English,
even write a Uttle, and understand a great deal. There
may be different opinions as to the relative value of
the two classes : for our part, we infinitely preferred the
former. Indeed, this was so well known among the
boys, that I remained for some five months in ignorance
of the fact that my boy was really good at English, an(?

EUROPEAN PEKING: EARLY DUTIES. 55

then it leaked out through the imprudence of a new
domestic. We were discussing at dinner some pecca-
dillo of the latter' s, and proposing suitable forms of
punishment, thinking that what we said was not under-
stood. Soon after dinner, however, the culprit went to
his master with a string of excuses. As he had resolved
to ignore the offence, he was naturally surprised. In-
quiry promptly made led to the painful discovery I
mentioned, and to a distrust of Enghsh-speaking boys.
In the South you have no choice. There all the boys
speak at any rate " pidgin." And they form almost a
caste. This is due, naturally, to the system of mutual
responsibility : you must either take a friend or acquain-
tance of the other servants, or engage a stranger with-
out security.

The duties of a boy are defined rather negatively
than positively. He will fetch you drinking-water, but
he will not carry water for your bath ; he will go out
and buy you a fan or a pen, but he will not carry a note
for you. Such work as that is " coolie pidgin " — the
duty of the man-of-all-work, who, with the cook and
boy, is necessary to the smallest household in European
China. A coolie's position and wages vary considerably.
A head coolie is a person of some importance, and gets
paid at much the same rate as a boy : an ordinary fetch-
and-carry coolie would get some three or four dollars a
month. A cook's wages range from six to ten dollars,
or higher. I am speaking only of Peking : servants in
the South, as a rule, I believe, get much more.

But in Peking, at least in the Legation, certain allow-
ances were made to the boys in addition to their wages.

56 WHEBE CSINESES DEIVE.

In winter, while fires were required, an additional dollar
a month for coal-money was given, and on the Chinese
New Year's Day (which usually falls somewhere in Feb-
ruary) half-pay for the month was added as a " cum-
shaw " or tip. Again, it is customary for officials in
China to give their servants what we called ' an official
cap ' and a pair of ' official ' boots. The cap in
summer is a conical hat of straw ; in winter, of black
felt, or some such substance, conical still, but with the
rim turned up for about two inches all round. In each
case (except during times of mourning, public or private)
it is topped with a long tassel of red silk or horse-hair.
The boots are of black velvet, with the usual thick white
sole, and come halfway up to the knee. Foreigners in
the public service — as Consular officers, for instance —
have adopted this custom, and twice every year the boys
have a certain sum (usually three dollars) allowed as
" boot and hat money." The day for paying this is
settled according to notice from the Board of Ceremo-
nies published in the " Gazette, " stating that on such a
day the summer hat will be changed for the winter, or
vice versa.

In the South, some of the merchants deck out their
servants in official hats, to the great amusement of the
Chinese, who draw a very broad line between the
mandarin and the trader. I remember seeing a ludi-
crous instance of the practice at one of the ports,
Shanghai I think it was. A European carriage drove
by with native coachman and footman. Each had on
the conical straw hat and red tassel, but in the middle
of their backs was embroidered a large circle, and in it

EUBOPEAN PEKING: EARLY DUTIES. 57

the name of the hong or firm in Chinese. It was as
though — the parallel is not quite exact, perhaps, but
it will serve — the Lord Mayor were to add to the
official liveries of his attendants a bull's head or a
triangle, with teade mark Registered about it, and below,
a legend

Brown's Tapioca is the Best!

But enough of boys — the subject is too trying.
Besides, I have said nothing yet about our work or our
Teachers. I will turn over a new leaf.

58 WHUBE CMINE8E8 DRIVE.

III. Teachees and Taught.

With very few exceptions all Chinese surnames are
monosyllabic. The surname is written j&rst and is fol-
lowed by what corresponds nearly to our Christian-name.
This may consist of one, but is usually a combination
of two, of these monosyllabic characters. The order of
arrangement is the same as in our Post Office Directories,
where, for instance, the name Lee Hugh John would
correspond, in form at any rate, to Li Hung Chang.
The Chinese practice in putting the surname first comes
partly from a well-grounded idea that you ought to pro-
ceed from the general to the particular, and partly from
the notion that, as they say, a man's surname belonged
to his ancestor's, and more respect should be paid to
it than to his own private name. And so it is not
only written first, but written larger than the other two
characters.

Very few of our surnames can be represented in Chi-
nese unaltered : names like May, Lang, or, in the south.
King, which happen to correspond to some one or other
of the four hundred and odd sounds that may be said
to make up the Chinese language, are indeed the only
ones admissible. At the same time, it is absolutely

TEACHERS AND TAUGHT. 59

necessary that every European, in Peking, at any rate,
should have a Chinese name : for the Chinese in all
probability would never be able to even approximate to
his own, and as regards the great majority of them they
would be too prejudiced even to try, or too stupid.

And so one of the first things that happens to the
newly-arrived student is a sort of re-christening, in the
course of which his original surname gets terribly
mangled — at any rate, very much cut up. Say, for
instance, that his name is Smith or Jones. The nearest
approach to these sounds of which a Chinaman's mouth
is capable would be respectively Ssii-mi-t^ and Chou-ni-
ssii. Accordingly, Mr. Smith would be known as Ssii
lao yeh, Mr. Ssu, while his Christian-name, as it were,
would be Mi-te. Similarly, Jones would be labelled by
a Chinaman as, " surname Chou, name Ni-ssu."

All Chinese proper names have more or less of mean-
ing, and in choosing an equivalent for your name you
must be careful to take characters with a good sense —
the more pseudo-humility and cant the better — and not
ones that would appear ridiculous or offensive to a
Chinaman. It used to be a common joke, they say,
among the Chinese, to saddle unsuspecting foreigners
with uncouth or contemptuous characters under pretence
of providing them with name and surname. And so
with their shop names : it is said that in those days you
might go to look at some newly-opened foreign store in
Hong-Kong, and find a crowd of admiring natives gazing
at a signboard on which was written, in huge gilt cha-
racters, some such legend as " The One-eyed Shrimp,
Foreign Shop," or " Crab in a Kettle, Store-keeper."

60 WHERE 0RINESE8 DRIVE.

To take the names Smith and Jones would bear : "Mi-
te," by properly choosing the characters, would mean
" Complete in moral worth," and " Ni-ssii," " Unre-
gardful of self-interest."

But a Chinaman has at least one other name besides
the surname and name proper. Just as in the case of
an individual named, for instance, Sydney Cecil Brown,
the Registrar of Births will enter him with all due cir-
cumstance as a boy (or, what is far more likely, as a
girl) of that name, while his parents call him Sydney,
and his associates Brown ; so a Chinaman is down in
his Family Eecord, or in the Red Book, if he is an
official, by his full name and surname, but only his
father or mother would call him by the name proper.
His friends give him a hao or " designation," half-way
between the schoolboy nickname " Tommy Green " and
the manlier "Brown," but derived from, or in some
way connected with the sense of, his private name. So
Jones's hao might be " Fu-te," " A supporter of virtue,"
and Smith's " Shou-ch'ien," " One who holds fast
courtesy."

I was reading some few months ago a paper in one of
the Monthlies on English Christian-names. The writer
called attention to a case in which twin girls were called
Eose and Lily, and another where they were christened
as Pearl and Euby. What he thinks most pretty —
most artistic, in other words — was the giving to one set
of twins the names of flowers, to another, the names of
gems. Now the Chinese carry out this rule of art far
more fully. The great majority of their characters con-
sist of two parts, one giving the genus, the category to

TEA.CHEBS AND TAVGHT. 61

which the idea expressed by the character is to be
referred ; the other approximating to the sound. Take
such expressions as " port-wine," " pine-wood," " water-
shed," and invent symbols more or less pictorial for
" wine," " wood," and "water," Find other symbols
with the sounds " port," " pine," and " shed " (the
meanings to be immaterial : they may, for instance, be
those which the words bear in " a sea-port," " to pine
for," or " a cow-shed "). Then combine the two into
one symbol, and you get an idea of the formation of
nine-tenths of the Chinese characters. Such terms as
"water-spout," "water-fall," " water-wheel," or "hum-
ming-bird," "mocking-bird," "love-bird" are the
nearest approach, perhaps, to these. The Chinese
founder of a family, then, will decide that all his de-
scendants in one generation are to be called by names
of gems ; in another, of flowers ; in a third, of trees ;
in a fourth, of birds ; in a fifth, of virtues, and so on.
It is not easy to find an exact parallel to all this in
English, and more especially difficult in the case of our
male Christian-names. But the arrangement would be
much like this : (i) Jasper, Beryl, Pearl, Ruby ; (ii)
Daisy, Violet, Lily, Eglantine ; (iii) Ivy, Myrtle ; (iv)
Robin, Merle, Mavis ; (v) Hope, Prudence, Charity,
and the like. Similarly, to follow out what would seem
to us a more natural division of names proper : Zoe,
Irene, Agatha, Hector, Philip ; Edwin, Edith, Edgar ;
David, Ruth, Samuel, Miriam. Had we as much sense
of congruity as the Chinese, we should hardly find in
our registers such names as Keziah Lucy or Enid
G-eorgina. If parents will give their first daughter a

62 WHERE OEINESES DBIVE.

name like Henrietta, let them in future christenings
continue in the same style — Charlotte, Wilhelmina,
Ernestine, Thomasina.

But I have (dreadful thought !) almost lapsed into a
lecture, and nearly forgotten what I intended to talk
about, the choice of a Chinese surname, not of an
English Christian-name. In some cases this is fairly
obvious. Mr. Coverdale would be Ko lao yeh ; Mr.
Palmer, Pa lao yeh. But for various reasons it often
happens that men are not known by the Chinese equiva-
lent of the sound of the first syllable in their names. In
the Consular Service, for instance, a distinct character
is given to each member to prevent confusion. The
consequence of this is that men get names assigned to
them that in no way suggest the foreign surname, and
sometimes represent no foreign sound — such as, for
example, Nge — and you are in the awkward and
anomalous condition of not knowing how to pronounce
your own name. There were two brothers in China
named Martin, and as neither could take the whole of
their patronymic, they agreed to share it, and were
known as Ma and Ting respectively. But it vexed the
uninitiated who wanted to find where the second brother
lived. One man whose name was Robinson took at
first the Chinese sound Lo ; but finding there were half
a dozen men in the port with names like Eoberts,
Rhodes, or Lawson, that had already led them to choose
that character, resolved to find some name that should
be peculiarly his own ; so he consulted his dictionary,
and sent round a circular to say that he would hence-
forth answer to the name of Ch'ien only. It caused

TEACHERS AND TAUGHT. 63

deep heart-burnings among the other six Lo's, but the

business of the port was not much disturbed.

With natives as washermen, it was as well to mark

all linen with the Chinese character chosen for your

surname. Where coloured things came in, especially

if the pattern were of a gaudy and remarkable . nature,

this was of less consequence ; but the omission in the

case of white clothes was incompatible with a strict

sense of the rights of property. Circumstances had

reduced me once to two pairs of white socks, and

occasion seemed to require the wearing of them. I

took a pair. The first sock slipped on easily enough —

indeed, somewhat too easily ; the effect was as if I had

stepped into a pillow-case in a fit of somnambulism.

The second sock, however, stuck fast at my ankle, and

refused to budge. I was driven to my last pair. One

of these fitted with an accuracy that revived hopes — to

be stified at once by the appearance of the other. As

old point-lace, or a cotton onion-bag, it would have

been of value, perhaps ; but as a foot-covering it was a

distinct and distressing failure. . . I spread those socks

out in a commanding position and reviewed them. One

of them was mine. I recognized it by a great blob of

ink that does duty for my initials. The other three were

marked

iv. © 3
V. G. 9

E. A. 2. 70.

The was O'Hara's ; no one else could have shown
an equal combination of ingenuity and neatness. The
second obviously belonged to Gordon ; but the E. A. 2. 70

64 WEEBE QHINESE8 BEIVE.

puzzled me. I became interested and made inquiries.
The sock was finally traced back to a student of five
generations— or say ten years — before, who had left it,
apparently, as an heirloom to the Mess.

The common equivalent for " Mr." was the lao yeh I
have used three or four times. Literally translated, it
reads " old grandfather." But anyone of, or above,
the rank of a Consul had the term tajen, " great man,"
substituted for this. The wife of a fa jen is a t'di-t'ai,
and this, pace Mr. Griles (Glossary, p. 141), is applied to
all European married ladies, whether their husbands
are officials or private persons. Paley, who indulges
occasionally in philological disquisitions, drew a strange
and startling deduction from this. He pointed out that
as t'ai meant " too," t'di-t'ai could only be translated
"too too." We assented reluctantly, chiefly for the
sake of peace. But when he went on to declare that,
since the Chinese had called a lady t'ai t'ai long before
the ultra-utter school had described their heroines as
" too too," therefore the soul of a dead Chinaman must
possess Oscar Wilde, we rose, as one man and protested.
As officials, however humble, of a friendly Power, we
could not sit quietly and listen to so grave an aspersion
on the Chinese people or their ancestral ghosts.

An unmarried lady has the affix ku-niang added to
her Chinese surname, while a missionary or a clergy-
man generally is known as hsien-sheng {" elder born "),
or teacher. And this brings me at last, by a round-
about way enough, to the subject of Chinese teachers.

Each student is provided, soon after his arrival, with
one of these men, and provides himself, quocunque modo

TEAOHEBS AND TAUGHT. 65

(for the book has long been out of print) with a copy of
Sir T. Wade's "Colloquial Course," the well-known
Tzii-Srh Chi, which is now, if not the only, at any
rate the orthodox, introduction to the study of Pe-
kingese. About this time the student will probably
have an interview with the Assistant Chinese Secretary,
who more particularly directs his studies, and will receive
from him a Scheme of Work for the next few months.
Working hours are theoretically from 9 to 12, and 1 to
4, but custom has altered these to 10 to 12 and 2 to 4.
The four hours thus left will be divided up in the
Scheme much in this way :

10 to 10.30 Tone Exercises
10.30 to 11 Beading with Teacher

11 to 11.30 New work
11.30 to 11.45 Writing

11.45 to 12 Character Slips,
the Afternoon Scheme being much the same.

. There was a certain mystery about the Scheme that
fascinated me when I first saw it. What were " Tone
Exercises" and " Character Slips" ? A sea bath and
a rub down with a rough towel seemed to about meet
the requirements of the first; the other suggested a
faux pas. But I found it all out, and too soon for my
comfort. I mentioned, I think, that there are only
some four hundred and odd distinct sounds, as we should
transcribe them, in the Chinese language. As there are,
say, ten thousand words, many of these should have the
same sound. As a matter of fact they have ; but by an
ingenious system of inflexions of the voice, the number
of separate sounds — to a Chinese ear, at least — -is more
than trebled. These inflexions are the Tones. In Peking

6

66 WHERE GEINE8ES DRIVE.

there are only four of them, but in the South those who
are knowing in such matters declare there are twelve or
more. In fact, southern Sinologues look out for a new
tone as astronomers do for a new planet ; and an an-
nouncement may soon be expected to appear in this
form : " Our readers will be delighted to hear that the
labours of Dr. Ernst, the eminent Sinologue, have been
crowned with complete success. By means of his new
instrument, which, it will be remembered, is an ingenious
combination of a microphone and a phonograph, he has
been enabled to detect a new tone in the Kakka dialect.
He has submitted the plate on which the new tone is
preserved to the distinguished musician, Herr Franz,
for analysis. This makes the seventeenth tone known
to be used among the Kakkas, and the discovery of no
less than six of these is due to the indefatigable industry
of Dr. Ernst."

In Peking, as I said, there are only four, and for the
sake of future students I hope no more will be invented
or discovered. It is agreed that it is almost impossible
to convey any notion of these tones to one who has
never heard them. But some idea of their importance
may be gathered from an instance or two. Take the
sound fang, which by itself is meaningless, and run it
through the tones, thus :

fdng^ t'dng^ t'dng^ t'dn^

The first means ' soup ' (originally ' hot water ') ;
the second, ' sugar ' ; the third, to ' lie down ' ; the
fourth, to ' burn ' or ' scald ' the hand, T-tzu in
the second tone is ' soap ' ; i-tzii, in the third, ' a
chair.'

TEAOHEBS AND TAUGHT. 67

Again, in the case of words beginning witli the initials
ch, k, p, t, or ts, it makes all the difference whether they
are followed by an aspirate or not. Bertram has a little
daughter who was born in China, and speaks Chinese
as well as English, and, in fact, prefers it to English as
being easier, (Perhaps her view is not altogether
incorrect, by-the-bye, as ch'e is a simpler sound, for
instance, than 'perambulator.') Bertram, however,
does not go in for the niceties of the language, and so,
when in the small child's hearing he one day told his
boy to shang fien}, where he meant to have said shang
t'ien^, she was puzzled. After thinking it over for some
time, she said, " Papa, what for tell boy go up sky ? "
Shang t'len?- means to ' ascend to heaven ' ; shang fien^
merely, to ' go to an inn.'

As these tones, then, were justly considered of the
first importance, we were required for an hour or so
every day to drone after a teacher :

«!

<P

a?

a*

ai^

av^

ai^

ai^

cha^

cha^

cha^

cha*

ch'a^

ch'a^

ch'a^

ch'a'^

and so on. It was dreadful work. The poor teacher
would get hoarse, and have to imbibe an enormous
quantity of tea. You would go on mechanically, and
think of some subject totally unconnected with Chinese,
until the teacher pulled you up, or the man next door,
who was learning characters, came in and prayed you to
stop that awful noise, or anyhow to go somewhere else
— your bath-room or the Fives Court — and make it.
The effect on one's nervous system of having a man on

6 *

68 WSEBE GHINBSES BBIVE.

each side and one overhead doing Tone Exercises at
the same time, was to convince you that this way mad-
ness lies, and that, on the whole, a judicious retreat to
the library or the billiard-room until their half-hours
were up was the only way to save your reason.

The rest of one's work at this initiatory stage was
more endurable — though it was bad enough. Fancy
having to learn to read a language with a separate sign for
each word ! It used to annoy Fawcett very much, and he
never got thoroughly used to it. But he refused to own
himself defeated by what he considered a semi-barbarous
contrivance, and when the then Chinese Secretary
requested him to write down the Chinese for a ' barn-
door fowl,' he complied with alacrity. The other looked
at it long and steadily, then took down Williams's Dic-
tionary and rapidly turned over the pages, holding a
murmured consultation with the teacher the while.
This done, he bowed gravely to Fawcett, and said, " I
congratulate you, Mr. Fawcett. You have added a new-
character to the Chinese language ! " Fawcett looked
pleased; but, as he told us afterwards, he was not
altogether surprised. He explained that as he could
only remember some nine or ten radicals (the two hun-
dred and fourteen simpler characters that have to be
learnt first) he was wont, on those rare occasions when
he was called on for anything outside their range, to
skilfully combine a few of them, adding a stroke here
and there to make the thing more shipshape. The
result was not always inteUigible to others ; but then,
as he said, he did not write for the profanum vulgus.

It was to assist less imaginative students that some-

TEAGREES AND TAUGHT. 69

body invented Character Slips. These are square bits of
paper, on one side of which is written a character, and
on the other its sound, tone, and meaning. They are
to be put into a box, and drawn out at random as a test
of memory. One man used to make his boy place a
small heap of twenty or so on his breakfast table every
morning. Those he knew were put into the sugar-bason,
the others into the bread-basket. But each man has
his 07?n way of getting up the written language — his
fdh-tza, as he used to call it. Victor had all the cha-
racters he came across written on large sheets of paper.
Then he would stretch cords diagonally across his room,
and suspend each sheet by a string, with a cash at the
other end to balance it. Coming suddenly into his
room the day after he had matured his fdh-tzd, I thought
he had found the charges outside excessive, and taken to
washing at home — it really looked so like a drying-ground.

The recognised hours of work were, as was said, from
ten to four, and the teachers were required to be in
attendance then. At other times we were left very
much to ourselves, though we were expected to do some
work privately. And in view of the fact that our posi-
tion in the service, with regard to seniority among our-
selves, depended on our place in the final examination,
there was a great deal of competition, and a fair amount
of reading got through, I think. There were two
examinations in all, one, for colloquial Chinese only, at
the end of the first year, and the other, in which docu-
mentary work was generally supposed to have the greater
weight, at the end of our two years' course.

Some of us, who had lost ground, or feared to do so,

70 WBEBE CEINE8ES DRIVE.

put on a private teacher, either before breakfast or in
the evening. He was usually one of the regular staff,
so to speak. These teachers are for the most part men
who have failed to pass the examinations for the first or
second degree, but are fairly well read, nevertheless.
Several of them are Bannermen, the descendants of
those who assisted in the Manchu Conquest of 1644,
and draw pay from the Government, which, however,
they are glad to supplement by the fifteen dollars a
month they get from the English Legation. Others,
again, have a share in some small business : our leading
teacher belonged to a watch-making family, and was
therefore a Eoman Catholic, seeing that the watch-
makers of Peking are, with few or no exceptions,
descended from the pupils and proselytes of the old
Jesuits. T'ang was a pleasant little fellow, who wrote
an excellent foreign hand, and was very proud of a few
words of Latin he had picked up. He was rather a
dandy, too, and a useful go-between when any objection-
able habits on the part of other teachers had to be
reprehended — and corrected. For though you are told
to regard your teacher as a gentleman, still some of
them associate on familiar terms with your boy or coolie,
few of them wash, most of them eat garlic or smoke
their sickly tobacco, and generally they — and you —
require a certain amount of training before you can
take any pleasure in their society. However, as they
are Chinese, it is not easy to make them understand all
this, and so, as I said, T'ang was usually employed to
explain these curious foreign prejudices.

Sometimes he was not at hand, and then the matter

TEACHERS AND TAUGHT. 71

was perhaps more difficult , When Fawcett was still
rather new to China, he engaged a teacher for whom,
he says, he had the greatest respect. Only the man
was a confirmed garlic-eater, and Fawcett determined
to dismiss him, but in such a way as not to hurt his
feelings : in fact, he resolved to break the thing to him
gently. And so we were not much shocked when one
day Fawcett came down to tiffin and told us he had just
sacked the man. He had not made him a long speech
(we thought that probable enough), but he had put it
to him clearly, and, he flattered himself, neatly as well.
It is true the teacher seemed a little offended, and had
left rather abruptly, but that must have been for some
other reason : probably another engagement. We were
very curious to hear what it was Fawcett had said ; but
he would not tell us for a long time — said he was shy
of airing his Chinese. At last he told us. He said,
" I came into the room and found the old iTeggar sitting
there, and so I made him a bow and pointed to the
door, and said, slowly. Wo pu yao ni (I don't want you)
— and I think that was all. Pass the claret, will you ?
Thanks."

My private teacher was an exception to the general
rule — more civilised in his ways, and cleaner. His
name was Sung, and he was, he said, of good family :
his father's fourth or fifth cousin being President of
one of the Six Boards. He used to come to me five
evenings in the week for a couple of hours, his fee for
which was $5 a month. We drank tea and chatted, or
played Chinese chess, a rather feeble game, I used to
think. Sometimes he brought in a friend who would

?2 WSEBE OHINUSES DBIVE.

smoke a cigar (Sung would not) and drink whisky-
toddy, and tell me the city news. Or when we were
alone, Sung told me tales.

"My grandfather," he said, "had a friend whose
name was Wang, a very worthy man, but poor. This
Wang by good fortune and steady work succeeded at
last in getting his chin-shih (Metropolitan Degree), and
received orders to remain in the city as an expectant of
office. Accordingly he sent for his mother and his wife,
and began to look about him for a house. In the
Northern Quarter he came across a place that he thought
would suit him nicely. True, it seemed a little out of
repair, but then it was commodious and quiet. And so
he inquired of the neighbours who the landlord might
be, and if they knew what the rent was ? They
answered that the landlord was a man named Wen : as
for the rent, the house was haunted, and, far from ex-
pecting anything from a tenant. Wen was prepared to
give anybody fifty ounces of silver who would live in it
for a year. This seemed tempting enough. Wang did
not care for spirits (the Chinese literati will profess to
drink nothing stronger than tea — but this by the way),
and told the landlord so. The landlord was delighted,
and said he would put some workmen in to repair the
place a little. The next day there was a great to-do.
One of the plasterers had fallen asleep in a side-room,
and his fellows had gone away and left him there.
During the night the neighbours heard wild shrieks
proceeding from the house, and the next morning the
poor man was found dead, with his heart torn out.
Wang did not half like it, but he thought of the fifty

TEAOHEBS AND TAUGHT. 73

ounces, and the house rent-free, and declared he would
spend the next night in that room himself. The neigh -
hours said he was most foolhardy, but he persisted, and
so they left him. He armed himself with a sword, and
determined to keep awake. But it was no use ; he got
more and more drowsy, and at last fell asleep. He was
awakened in the middle of the night by a noise in the
room. It was a bright moonlight night, and he could
see everything distinctly. He caught hold of his sword,
and peered over the edge of the k'ang (the stove-bed).
There was nothing. Presently, however, he noticed
that the door, which he had securely fastened, was being
slowly opened. Wang began to wish he had listened to
the neighbours ; but there was no help for it, and so he
got ready for the robbers or devils or whatever it might
be that was coming. After a few minutes of dreadful
suspense," . . . Here Sung pauses, and deliberately
pours himself out a cup of tea and drinks it ... " two
little tiny children entered hand in hand. They were
not more than sis inches high, and their bodies shone
in the moon just like burnished silver. Wang was so
astonished at the sight that he forgot his fears and began
to watch them curiously. Presently they sat down at a
chess-board and commenced to play: but instead of
moving the pieces they said something to them that
Wang could not understand, and the pieces ran about
of themselves. After a little time one of the children
seemed to be losing, for he got angry, and all his men
danced over to the other side of the board and tried to
oust the others. Then the two children began to fight,
rolling over and over on the floor, till at last one of

74 WHERE OHINESES DRIVE.

them got the worst of it. The other then took him and
pushed him into a chink in the floor, which he covered
up with the chess-board. After that he sidled out of
the room and shut the door. Nothing further happened
that night ; and the next morning the neighbours, find-
ing Wang ahve and well, were surprised, and a little
disappointed, too, if the truth must be told, for they ex-
pected another sensation. Wang told them what he
had seen. They were very much surprised and could
not understand it at all, until one old man came forward
and said, 'Wang toko (my elder brother), you are a
very lucky man. Those you saw were not children at
all, but money-spirits, and that is why they shone like
silver. Do you remember where the chess-board was
put ? ' Wang pointed out the place, and there, sure
enough, was a brick with the lines of a chess-board
scratched on it. (They are often seen on Chinese
floors.) They lifted up the brick, and underneath was a
jar quite full of silver,, and on the top of it all a little
silver figure about six inches long, and in its hand a
piece of paper on which was written, ' This silver is for
Wang Wan-yi, because he has a good heart and a
courageous spirit.'

"Now," said Sung, "I shouldn't, perhaps, have
believed all this, if my grandfather hadn't known the
man, and seen the room. I '11 tell you another story
which I 've read in a book, that 's stranger still. It 's
about Yen Wang (the Chinese Pluto).

" In the time of the Liang dynasty there were two
sisters whose surname was Chou. They were both ex-
tremely beautiful, and the elder was engaged to a man

TBAGHEBS AND TAUGHT. 75

named Liu. Just as their father was beginning to look
out for a husband for his younger daughter, she fell ill
and died. When her shade appeared before Yen Wang,
he was so struck with her beauty that he placed her in
charge of the Mi-hun T'ang, the Water of Lethe, at
the Gate of Hades. Here she remained for nearly
three years, giving the draught of forgetfulness to
each newly-arrived shade, that it might forget its life
on earth and be ready to enter a new body, should
it be so required. But one day she saw the shade of
her sister coming down the path. The shade stooped
over the Mi-hun water, and was taking the cup into her
hands, when her sister snatched it from her, begging
her not to drink. Then she asked her of all that had
happened since she left the earth. The elder sister
told her that she had been married to Liu, and one day,
feeling faint, had lain down on a couch, and remem-
bered nothing more till she awoke in this strange place.
Seeing the water, she at once felt a desire to drink ;
why had her sister stopped her ? The other then told
her where she was, and bade her hide herself. For she
knew that Yen Wang would count over the list of souls
due in Hades, and, missing one, would send in search.
And so it came about : but the messengers not finding
anyone, returned and reported their ill-success, and Yen
Wang believed that there was some error in the record
and forbore to inquire further. Not many hours after,
another shade was seen to descend the road. The
younger sister was about to oflfer it the Water of For-
getfulness, when the elder cried out that it was her
husband, Liu Chin-shun. The husband was overjoyed

76 WHERE OHINHSES DRIVE.

to see his wife ; but their sister, the keeper of the
Water, was sorely perplexed. At last she remembered
that it was in her power to restore both of them to life,
if they would drink of the four jars that stand in the
vestibule of Hades. These hold the Chih-hui T-'ang,
the Water of Wisdom, which is bitter to the taste ; the
Yen-shou T'aug, the Water of Long Life, which is
putrid ; the W^n-mo T'ang, the black Water of Letters;
and the Yiian-pao T'ang, the noisome Water of Riches.
When with wry faces and closed eyes they had drunk of
these, the pair became unconscious. After a time they
revived, and found themselves again in their own house,
laid out, each in a coffin, as if for burial. They lived
many years happily together after this, and Liu became
renowned all through the country for his learning and
wealth. Yet, when in course of time they came once
more to the Gate of Hades, they did not hesitate to
drink the Mi-hun Water.

'■' You foreigners," added Sung, " don't believe in
Yen Wang, I know. I don't say that I do, but still
there are books telling us all about him. However,
I '11 give you a story of what really happened in Peking,
without any shen-hsien (supernatural beings) in it.

"A few years ago, a man was found dead just out-
side the street-door of his house. The neighbours,
being afraid to touch the corpse themselves, sent word
to the magistrate, who received strict orders from the
police censors of the city to investigate the case, as
there had been too many mysterious deaths of late years
in Peking. He accordingly sent for the wu-tso (the
coroner) and told him to find out in two days' time

TEAQHEB8 AND TAUGHT. 77

what the man had died of, or it would be the worse for
him. The wu-tso examined the corpse carefully, pour-
ing boiling water on it, and trying it with the needle
(to discover traces of poison), but with no result. Then
he summoned the relations and the wife and neigh-
bours of the deceased, and examined them in the
most searching manner, but failed to illicit anything
beyond the fact that the dead man had seemed in excel-
lent health the day before. The two days were nearly
over, and the coroner was in a great state of alarm,
for he knew that the magistrate would not hesitate to
sacrifice him to cover his own dereliction of duty in not
having, by force of virtuous example and good govern-
ment, made such murders (for murder it surely must
be) impossible.

" While he was wondering gloomily whether it would
not be better to settle everything at once by suicide,
his wife, who had been away at her parents' a few days,
returned, and asked what was the matter. When he
told her, she said, ' Foolish man, did you examine the
head ? ' He answered that of course he did, but she
went on, ' But the ears — did you probe the ears ? ' He
told her that test was not in his book of instructions,
and he had not done so. Then she bade him do it.
He obeyed, and found in the left ear, driven right up
to the head, a long thin nail, and of this he went and
informed the magistrate. Now the magistrate, albeit
unscrupulous enough, was no bad judge of character,
and, knowing the coroner to be a very ordinary man, he
asked how he came to do such an unusual thing as to
probe the ears of the corpse. The wu-tso answered

78 WHERE CHINESE8 DRIVE.

that his wife had suggested it. 'Ah, you married
Ch'^ng liu-niang (Miss Ch'eng), didn't you ? ' asked
the magistrate, ' Oh no, sir,' said the coroner, * my
wife was the widow of Fulien, who died two years ago.'
' To be sure,' said the magistrate, ' I remember now.
Fulien was buried near Pa li Chuang in their cemetery,
wasn't he ? Your wife is a clever woman : I should
like to see her.' The coroner answered that she should
come to-morrow, and bowed himself out. When he
had gone, the magistrate wrote a note, which he sent
outside the city.

" The next morning the coroner's wife arrived with
her husband, and after the usual compliments the
magistrate congratulated her on her sagacity; then
asked her if she liked her present husband better than
the last. She answered that she did : Fulien had led
her a dog's life, and she could not say she was sorry "
when he died, ' Wasn't his death rather sudden ? '
asked the magistrate. 'Yes,' she said, 'it was. But
he is dead and gone, why talk of him ? ' ' What did
he die of? ' asked the magistrate. ' I don't know,' she
answered, a little sharply. At this point a runner came
in and whispered something to the magistrate. He
nodded, and some coolies entered with a coffin. ' Open
the lid,' said the magistrate. When this was done, he
turned to the wu-tso, saying, ' Look at the scull of the
dead man : is there a nail in it ? ' ' There is,' said the
astonished coroner, ' on the left side.' ' Ah ! madam,'
exclaimed the magistrate to Fulien's widow, 'little
wonder that you knew how that man had died, when
you had killed your husband in the same way ! ' The

TEACHERS AND TAUGHT. 79

next day, two women were put to death by the terrible
ling ch'ih (by being sliced to death) for the crime of
murdering their husbands."

I cannot say whether Sung's last tale was not as
apocryphal as his first. But it has a curious parallel in
a well-known story at home.

I came to like Sung very much, as I learnt to know
him better. He was very conscientious ; never shirked
his own work, nor, as far as he could help it, allowed
me to shirk mine. He was rather too much inclined,
indeed, to look on me in much the same way as a Civil
Service coach regards his pupils, and to consider that I
owed a certain, nay, a great, deference to his views.
But he got over that in time. He used often to chat
with me about his family. He had a little son of five
or six, whom he would bring occasionally to have tea
with me in the afternoon. The poor little lad — he was
a pretty boy, and intelligent, and evidently his father's
pride — was going through the usual treadmill of studies
set up for Chinese children, and his father would make
him repeat to me page after page of the Four Books
(the first of the classics), prompting him if he failed.
Fancy giving children of that age at home, say, the
Gospel of St. Luke in the original, to learn ofi" by heart
— before they could read even English, and long before
they understood a word of Greek !

Sung's eldest daughter was about sixteen, and so I
did not see her. She was very accomplished, and her
father was exceedingly proud of her attainments. He
got her to write out a small moral story (it was some-
thing about two sisters-in-law who lived together, and

^

i^

^i

*r

>fi<.

TEACEBB8 AND TAUGHT.

81

Invitation in the handwriting of Sung Ku-niang to a
Wine Party to he given by her Father.*

4,

3.

2.

1.

His

Lantino

Ching

jewelled

his

lao-ye

person

honoured

BXmG

for

thither

younger

CHAN- CHI

his

This

brother

knocks

exalted

he

will

his

consideration

hopes

on

head

and

that

He

thus

day

now

sends

he

proposes

earnestly

in

hopes

the eighth

lay

moon

Handed

aside

on

in

his

the seventeenth

on

work

day

the twelfth

and

at

day

move

the T'ung-hsing

of the eighth

Eooms

moon

a

slight

refection

[The numbers 1 to 4 refer to the corresponding colnmua in the Chinese
note, counting from the right.]

* This invitation, written on an ordinary visiting .card, is very
informal, doubtless as being addressed to an intimate friend and
one younger than the host. The usual letter of invitation is a
sheet of red paper, with the legend, written or printed —

"HeedfuUy chosen is the [4th] hour of the
[17th] day of the [8th] moon whereon to
cleanse the cups and await

"TOUE GLORY,

A note with the salutation of [Sung Chan-
chi]."

This is enclosed in an envelope, sealed with a slip of paper, on
which is inscribed the name of the guest.

The words " honoured younger brother," are properly " cherry-r
terrace," " terrace " being analogous to, but of far wider applica- ,

6

WHERE GHINESES BBIVE.

pointless, moral and all, to monogamic Englishmen),
and gave it me to read. She really wrote most beauti-
fully, and he said she embroidered equally well. I
fancy she used to rule his house from what he would
say sometimes. But one day, Sung came to me and
asked me if I knew anything about the T'ung-wen
Kuan (the "Peking College," as it has been called).
I answered, a little doubtfully, yes ; why did he ask ?
Well, he said, there were two young fellows there study-
ing English, and he was very anxious to learn how they
were getting on : what, in short, was their position, and
what their prospects, and if they showed ability or
not. I said that I thought T might make inquiries,
but that I was a little curious to know his reasons for
wanting me to do so, I must confess. Then it came
out that he wished to engage his daughter to one of
the two, but did not know which to choose. One was
a little older than the other, and seemed to show more
application as far as he could tell ; but the younger —
who was only 17, by the way — was more intelligent,
perhaps, and — ^yes — was better looking. I fear that
after all there was some hitch in the matter, for nothing
has come of it as yet, I believe.

Still the desire to marry his daughter to a man likely

tion than, our "highness." The less obvious connection between
cherries and brethren is found in a verse of the ancient Odes : —
" Cherry-tree blossom

Is it not lovely ?

Who among mankind

Is like to a brother ? "
"Jewelled (person) "=2/m, the gem par excellence of the
Chinese, and a common term of polite address, which, however
an unfortunate ambiguity in our language prevents us from
translating literally as " you jade,"

TEAOHEBS AND TAUGHT. 83

to be attached to one of the Chinese legations abroad
showed an appreciation of the changed path that Chinese
foreign poHcy has during the last few years taken, and
must continue to take. I do not know whether Sung
was an exceptionally enlightened man of his class, or in
advance of his age. I see no reason to suppose that he
was, beyond the fact that he has been a teacher in the
Legation some little time. He used to take in the Shen
Pao, a paper published daily at Shanghai, in Chinese,
and containing, besides the current news of the Empire,
accounts of everything that is going on in other parts of
the world. When he ceased to buy it he would go to a
tea-house to read it. It is just in this way, by means
of this and other good newspapers printed, under Euro-
pean editorship for the most part, in the vernacular,
that the Chinese have acquired a really surprisingly
correct idea of the relative power and civilization of
Western nations. The old days of ignorance have
almost passed away. If prejudice remains, it is because
it is fostered by the officials for their own ends. I do
not believe, indeed, that the ordinary Chinaman of fair
education has of himself any great prejudices at all,
superstitious or otherwise. If the mandarins will allow
him, he is ready to adopt any new scientific discovery,
should it be clearly to his advantage to do so. He
laughs at the idea of feng-shui. (This as it is present
in an Englishman's mind — for it is present — equals
" that hideous factory chimney spoiHng the view " ; "a
railway train, like a long black dragon with fiery eyes
belching smoke " ; " our grandfathers were content with
coaches, why not we ? " Ruskin would go some way

6 *

84 ' WEUBE 0HINE8ES DEIVK

with the professors of feng-shui.) At any rate, few
Chinamen of this new middle-class would allow its
precepts to interfere with the only prospect they have
eyes for — the prospect of gain.

But telegraphs, railways, and the like, must be
introduced into China in the first instance by the
Government, or they will not be allowed to succeed.
As examples, the different fate of the Woo- sung Eail-
way and the Overland Telegraph from Tientsin to
Shanghai. And the object of their introduction will
scarcely be the benefit to trade or the mercantile class ;
they will be regarded as a means of strengthening the
military position of China, and so enabling her to resist
the very civilization that has produced them. But there
is one impediment to their introduction, which is of far
greater importance than the doctrine of feng-shui, but
is rather apt to be overlooked. The Chinese Empire is
an assemblage of satrapies, independent of one another,
and, for the most part, shut off by great natural
obstacles from rapid communication with the Central
■ Government at Peking. Owing to the impossibility of
applying for and receiving instructions on matters of
urgency, the Viceroys or Governors of these provinces
have great discretionary power given them. If they
fail to put down a revolt or relieve a famine, they will
be impeached, and perhaps severely punished ; but if
they succeed, little inquiry will, in all probability, be
made into the means. It was to the great temptations
which this state of semi-independence offered that the
Viceroy of Yiin-kwei yielded in 1865. He had been
ordered to resign in consequence of his ill- success

TEAGSBBS AND TAUGHT. ' 85

against the Panthay Mahommedans ; but, instead of
submitting, declared himself Emperor of Yiin-nan, and
held the eastern half of the province for several years
against the Imperialists. Now, such men as this, and,
indeed, all provincial officials, whose power would be
curtailed by their introduction, are most unlikely to
support the various schemes for opening tip the country
by means of railways or telegraphs. It rests with the
Central Government to assert itself. When it sees fit
to do so, and abandon its old policy of provincialism,
the objections raised by feng-shui will cease, since that
only masks the real obstacle. Then such stories as the
apparition of the late Empress in a dream, saying that
she could not rest in peace in her tomb in the Eastern
Hills because of the K'ai-p'ing coal-mines, will no longer
be encouraged, or even, possibly, allowed.

But, meanwhile, whatever changes may be made in
China in the direction of an, apparently, more liberal
attitude towards Western science, it is too absurd to
picture the Pekingese of to-day, as M. Jules Verne does
in his extravaganza (it is little better), The Troubles
of a Chinaman, as making familiar use of all the most
modern inventions, and the newest improvements in
them. Little, indeed, or nothing, of any of these was
to be seen at Peking, even in the houses of Europeans
— I believe, however, that the telephone has been lately
introduced into the Inspectorate-General of Customs —
and, although the gas-lamp on the wall of the Pro-
fessor's house has flared over the dirt and dust of the
Kou-lan Hu-t'ung for some years now, the Chinese
seem to have shown no desire to substitute in their

86 WHJEBE CHINESES BBIVK

streets lamps like it for the wretched paper lanterns
that, like wreckers' beacons, only serve to allure you
into danger and a pool of filth.

But to come back to Sung. I asked him and a friend
of his named Chao to a Chinese dinner one day. My
boy found a good inn in the Western Quarter, and
made all the arrangements for me with the landlord.
The invitations were written on the large red visiting-
cards used by the Chinese, and duly accepted — by being
left unanswered. Six o'clock was the hour fixed, and,
as I was going in a cart, I had to leave the Legation
early, for the Western Quarter is some way off. I
arrived a little late as it was, and after my guests — a
highly improper proceeding ; but then I think they
were too early. I was received at the gate of the inn
by the landlord, who showed me into the room reserved
for us. It stood all by itself in a little side court
entered by a circular doorway. The room itself was
bare of furniture, except for a round table, a few clumsy
chairs, and a long and broad bench, used, as I afterwards
learned, in opium-smoking. It was winter, and so we
had a small charcoal stove on the brick floor. The
general aspect of the room and its belongings was that
of a respectable scullery ; but my guests seemed more
than satisfied.

I had heard and read so much of the trials that await
a European stomach at these entertainments, and of the
troubles that unaccustomed chop-sticks involve you- in,
that I had told my boy to bring brandy, and a set of
knives, forks, and spoons. I also had a bottle of sherry
and another of whisky for my guests. When I arrived,

TEAGHEBS AND TAUGHT. 87

the table, bare of table-cloth, was set out with little
dishes containing fruit and cold meats, cut into the
tiniest morsels. Presently we sat down, and each man
had a little saucer, a pair of chop-sticks, and two tiny
cups given him. An attendant then went round with a
kettle, out of which he poured a luke-warm liquid
almost colourless, and nearly, if not quite, tasteless.
This was our wine. I wonder a Chinaman ever
manages to get tipsy on such poor stuff; but pro-
bably this was the vin ordinaire, as it were. And,
indeed, their Eose Spirit and " Samshoo " are very
much stronger.

Sung's friend would help me with his chop-sticks,
and heap up my plate with incongruous tit-bits : a little
lump of carp, a wafer-like slice of ham, some goose's
liver, and a piece of shark's fin. It was no use saying
that I preferred to take them by instalments, or that
they did not, so to speak, harmonize — he could not
see the force of my objections ; and it struck him as
slightly eccentric on my part, and probably as a little
impolite, to refuse a piece of pork fat he offered me in
the spoon with which he had just taken his soup ; for,
after the cold meats came in several bowls of fish,
flesh and fowl (chiefly fish and fowl), all very hot and
very greasy. I tried for some time to swallow some-
thing ; then gave up, and went in steadily for the
Che-kiang ham, which was really excellent. Course
after course was sent in ; but the Chinamen were not
satisfied, and finally ordered a sort of hotch-potch, a
dish with a pan of burning charcoal in the centre,
keeping hot the soup in the outer bowl. Into this

At

it

^1

*4

f,lkf

TEAGHEES AND TAUGHT.

89

Private Note.

— Return Invitation to Dinner from
8ung's friend Ohao.*

7. 6.

5.

4.

3.

2.

1.

YOUB

TOUE

High

NoE and Mai'

Honour

Sung

Excellence

my

•And

on

hsien-shcE

ig Days

lords

I the twenty-seventh

on

ago

A

to move

beg

day

my

you

note

their

that

of this

behalf

bestowed

with

jewelled

you

moon

to invite

a

the salutation

' steps

will

at

refection

of Chao

and

on

the yin

on

Chien-t'ing_

early

my

hour .

me

approach

behalf

to occupy

for

This

invite

a

many

. J.

borrowed

days

hope

seat

we

and

at

have

take

the Hung-ch'ing

not

the occasion

Tavern

met

to enquire-

in

yesterday

after

Velvet-thread

Lane

where

we

may

fill

our

cups

and

chat

the while

I
■ begged

[The numbers 1 to 17 refer to the corresponding columns iu the Chinese
note, counting from the right.]

* The Chinese possess an ample store of pronouns and a suf-
ficient system of punctuation ; but they make it a point of culture
to avoid, where they can, the use of both. Li their correspondence
rhythm supplies the place of commas, and metaphor the absence
of pronouns. Neither course is satisfactory to the English trans-
• lator, and I have been compelled to introduce various I's and
you's ; I have not, though, enclosed them in brackets, lest my
translation should resemble too closely an early chapter in Tod-
hunter's Algebra.

Another peculiarity is still harder to reproduce — the " respectful
elevation of characters," as Sinologues describe it. Whenever a
direct reference is made to the person addressed, the vertical

90 WHERE CHINESES DRIVE.

soup they emptied the contents of any bowl or saucer
that came to hand, and after these had seethed and
bubbled for a short time, plunged their chop-sticks in,
filled their saucers, and continued the feast for some
twenty minutes more. When they had quite finished,
we ranged ourselves about the room, and smoked,
drank, and chatted. They wanted me to play morra,
the childish finger-game they and the Italians enjoy.
The forfeit is a cup of wine, which the loser drinks.
I said I did not in the least know how to play it,
but it would give me the greatest pleasure to lose, I
felt sure. But they thought on the whole it would
not be amusing ; and so we made ourselves some toddy,
and left.

A few days afterwards I asked the same two China-
men to a European dinner in my rooms. Sung said he
would come with pleasure, but stipulated that there

column is left incomplete, and the character involving the reference
commences a new column, and is elevated two spaces above the
general level. A mutual friend or a superior enjoys " single
elevation " ; on the other hand, where the parents of the recipient
are alluded to, these are honoured by an elevation of three spaces.
An indirect reference to one's correspondent calls for " single
elevation " only. Thus, the words ho-hsia (" your Honour,"
properly " under the balcony ") are raised two spaces ; yiian chia
("high" or " chiefest excellence ") one space, and similarly with
the surnames Sung, Mai, Nge.

The " yin hour " is the period between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. ; prac-
tically, however, it means 7.

" To occupy a borrowed seat," literally " to falsely sit down,"
is to be a guest at a tavern instead of at the host's own house.

" My Lords," properly " Two Dukes." Mai and Nge are not,-
however, as yet, entitled. The term hung, in its primary sense a
prince or duke, is very largely, if not loosely, applied. I have
seen a tomb with the inscription,

" Shm liu shih hu/ng."
[His Grace a Corpse Washed Ashore.j

TEACHERS AND TAUGHT. 91

should be no beef; for an orthodox Chinaman will not
eat the " ploughing beast," and, considering that in
Peking beef is mostly horse or donkey re-christened,
perhaps he is wise. He objected to hare, too, for some
reason or other. Finally we agreed on a menu that
included nothing taboo, and I sent invitations to Sung's
friend and to T'ang. The dinner went off very well,
and the behaviour of the guests was most exemplary.
T'ang was used to the thing and showed it ; the other
two would cast furtive glances at his manipulation of
napkin and finger-bowl, and act accordingly. But
there was no trace of the excellent appetite of a few
days before ; I fancy their faith was small, and they
had provisioned themselves for this feast. But Chao
took kindly enough to cigarettes and hirsch, and quite
unbent over his whisky and water, and insisted on my
dining with him that day week. There are drawbacks
to entertaining Chinamen.

But to resume. Beyond the course of study laid
down in the Tzu-erh Chi, we were not required to go in
for other reading during the two years we were to spend
in Peking, though it was generally understood that we
should look at some Chinese novel, and occasionally
take up the Peking Gazette. This is published every
day in two or three forms. The edition we usually
took in was about three inches by six, and consisted of
some twenty to thirty sheets roughly fastened together
by bits of twisted paper, and enclosed in " flimsy yellow
•covers," as Mayers called them. On the back were
stamped two characters, Ching Pao, the " Metropolitan
Gazette." The paper is prepared beforehand, ruled in

92 WHERE 0HINESE8 DRIVE.

red perpendicular lines, seven to the half-page. The
documents issued for publication are taken down in
manuscript, and then set up in movable wooden type,
and printed with an ink that is very apt to come off and
stain the fingers of the reader. These documents are
of very varying interest, often merely reports of transfers
and promotions. But occasionally you come across an
account of a trial or curious ceremony that is distinctly
entertaining, and throws great light at the same time
on some phases of Chinese character. As, for instance,
the San P'ai-lou Murder Case, now, by reason of the
excitement it caused in the Grazette, and therefore pre-
sumedly among the officials, become quite a cause celebre.
The report is somewhat long, and, if you are not inte-
rested in the Police Column of the oldest daily paper in
the world, please skip this and the following pages.

On the morning, of the 12th of January, 1878, the
body of a man, whose name was unknown, was found
near the San P'ai-lou at Nanking. There were marks
of wounds in several places : his queue, too, had been
cut off and had disappeared. By the side of the corpse
lay a parcel of lime, some brown paper, a small cleaver,
and a pair of straw shoes. There was no blood on the
ground, nor were there any traces of a struggle.

The matter was reported to the late Viceroy of
Nanking, Sh^n Pao-chen, and he deputed the present
Salt-Commissioner Hung Ju-ku'ei to try it. A Colonel
Hu was instructed to search for and arrest the mur-
derer ; and he succeeded in discovering an eye-witness
of the affair, a man named Fang. This man deposed
that on the night of the 11th his road led him past the

TEAGSEBS AND TAUGHT. 93

spot. By the faint light of the moon reflected on the
snow, he saw a dead man lying on the ground, and stand-
ing by him three men, one tall and one short, and one
who looked like a Buddhist priest. He was startled,
and was hesitating what to do, when one of the men
went up to him, and told him, with threats, to mind
his own business, on which he at once came away. By
means of this clue three men were, one after the other,
arrested : a priest, Shao Tsung, and two men named
Chang and Ch'ii. In Ch'ii's possession was found a
five-cornered cash (used either as a charm, or a token
of some secret society).

At the trial, the prisoner Chang was the first to make
a statement. He said that he had been led to commit
murder through poverty ; and this was confirmed by
Ch'ii, who declared that he had been prevailed on by
the priest and Chang to kill a pig-drover named Hsiieh
Ch'un-fang for the sake of his money. After carrying
away the corpse, they stripped off his blood-stained outer
garment, and took it back to the hills with them, where
they burnt it. The brown paper Ch'ii had brought with
iiim to wipe the blood off his hands ; the lime the priest
had used to stifle the victim's cries; the cleaver was
the weapon with which the murder was committed ; the
grass shoes belonged to the dead man. This confession
agreed in every particular with the depositions of the
witness; and, moreover, a butcher's knife and a bill-
hook were discovered, which the priest and Ch'ii
admitted to have used in the murder. Even the ashes
of the burnt clothes were found. When questioned
about their victim, the priest and Chang said they had

94 WHERE GHINESE8 BBIVE.

never seen him before, and all Ch'ii knew was that he
had heard him say he came from Hochou.

These particulars were laid before the Viceroy, who,
in view of the fact that the men confessed themselves
guilty of wilful murder, but refused to give a satisfactory
account of the antecedents of the murdered man, came
to the conclusion that it was a case of assassination
of one of their number by the members of a band of
robbers. Accordingly he sentenced Ch'ii and the priest
to be immediately executed, and their heads exposed in
a cage. Chang, as the first to turn Crown evidence,
had the capital penalty commuted. His right ear was
cut off, he was branded, and sent back to his native
place. So the case was closed.

Three years afterwards, a man was brought before a
police court in Nanking, charged with theft, and while
there laid an accusation against two men, whose names
where Chou and Shen. They were arrested and brought
to trial. The evidence established the following : —

Towards the end of the year 1877, Chou had per-
suaded a married woman named Liu, of Fu-ning, to
elope with him, and had hired a boat to take them
south. On the way he came across an old acquaintance
named Chu Piao, who, with his comrades Shen and
Hsii, was towing his boat along. Chu, seeing a young
woman in Chou's barge, asked him where he was going.
Chou said he wanted to get to Nanking, but the money
for boat hire had run short. Chu on this paid his pas-
sage-money for him, and invited him to come into his
OAvn boat, and do the rest of the journey in his com-
pany. Chu himself had a woman with him whom he

TEACHERS AND TAUGHT. 95

had carried off, named Chao. The whole party arrived
at a place called Liu Ho, and while there Chu Piao
eloped with the woman Liu. Chou was much enraged,
but feared Chu's skill with his fists, so persuaded Shen
to come with him in pursuit of the pair. Shen had an
intrigue with the woman Chao, Chu's mistress, and
feared lest it should come to his ears : so readily agreed
to go. They stole a small cleaver belonging to Hsii,
and started off together for Nanking. On the way,
Chou purchased some lime, which they intended to
throw into the man's eyes. On the 11th January, they
met Chu Piao in Nanking, and learnt from him that the
woman Liu was concealed in the house of Miu the
Cripple. Chu told them he was hard-up, and meant to
rob a candle-store near the San P'ai-lou, and asked
them to help him. Accordingly they bought some
grass shoes, a chaffing dish, and some brown paper, and
went together to the bamboo garden, close to the San
P'ai-lou. It was nearly midnight, and the ground was
covered with snow, on which a frosty moon was glisten-
ing. The three men crouched round the charcoal pan
warming their hands. Presently, Chu Piao rose and
went a little way off. The two confederates seized this
opportunity to arrange their attack, and Shen stealthily
twisted his hand in Chu's queue. Chu started and
stumbled, when Chou began to hack at him wildly with
his cleaver, and in so doing cut off his queue. Shen,
coming to his assistance, snatched a dagger from the
victim's girdle, and stabbed him once or twice with it
till he was dead. They did not remove the body, but,
flinging down the cleaver, the parcel of lime, the brown

96 WEEBE GHINE8ES DBITE.

paper, and the straw shoes, by the side of the corpse,
they fled. The next day they found out and carried off
the woman Liu, whom they sold, dividing the proceeds.
All this was confirmed by the testimony of the other
woman, who said that they had confessed to her what
they had done. Hsii, too, recognised the cleaver as
his. . . .

This case agreed so exactly in place and time with
the former one, that a brother of the man Ch'ii, who
was executed for the murder, was summoned. He stated
that he had sent his nephew to Hochou, where the
murdered man was said to have come from, and found
that there never had been any such person there as
Hsiieh Ch'un-fang.

Now, it was extremely unlikely that two murders
could have taken place on the same night in such a
place of public resort as the San P'ai-lou, without
everyone knowing and speaking of it. The whole thing
was as clear as a picture. The dead body found on the
morning of the 12th was that of Ohu-Piao, that was
certain, and the murderers where Chou and Shen. The
difficulty was to understand how the two men already
executed for the crime, the priest and Ch'ii, and the
man Chang, who was branded and banished, came to be
willing to falsely confess themselves guilty. And the wit-
ness produced at the former trial. Fang, how was it that
he was so positive in his testimony ? There was nothing
for it but to summon Chang and Fang, which was done.

On cross-examination. Fang declared positively that
on the day in question he not only had not seen the
dead body, but had never been near the San P'ai-lou at

TEACHERS AND TAUGHT. 97

all. He had heard people saying that at such and such
a place a man had been killed, and on going home had
told his mother of it. She told him not to get talking
at random in the streets, as he was deaf and slow of
understanding. After this he went out to sell sunflower
seeds, and met on the road a militiaman who, under
pretence of wanting to buy his sweetmeats, took him to
the Kuan-yin Monastery, and shut him up in a room.
There he was visited by Colonel Hu, who asked him
about the San P'ai-lou murder, saying that a beggar
had told him that he, Fang, knew all about it. After
this, Hu took him to another temple, where he con-
trived that he should see the priest Shao Tsung, and
ordered him to declare that on the night of the murder
he had seen this priest and two other men standing by
the corpse. These other two he would tell him about
after their arrest. Pang refused to agree, but as Hu
continued to press him and to threaten him, or to pro-
mise him money, he at last consented to give the
evidence he did at the trial. All his answers to the
cross-examination of Hung, the presiding judge on that
occasion, were prompted by Hu and rehearsed before-
hand. When Ch'ii was arrested, one of the Coloners
men fetched witness to look at the prisoner through a
chink in the window, that he might identify him when
called on to do so. Chang was an old acquaintance,
and he involved him in the charge out of fear of Hu.
Witness was kept under guard until the case was over,
when he was released.

Chang deposed that he spent the night of the 11th at
the house of one Ch'Sn, but that on the trial Hu and

7

98 WHERE GHINE8E8 BBIVE.

some of the judges threatened him with torture, and
told him, besides, that the priest and Ch'ii had con-
fessed, so that he did not dare to refuse to say what
was required of him. His account was confirmed by
Ch'en, and also by one of the judges at the trial, who
said he had seen Colonel Hu apply torture to Ch'u.

Hu was accordingly summoned, but refused to confess
his guilt.

At this point the new Viceroy of Nanking, Liu K'un-
yi, from whose memorial all this is an extract, wrote to
the Emperor for permission to examine Hu by torture,
and to put Hung and his assessors on their trial. This
was done, and it became sufficiently evident that Hu,
failing to discover the real murderers, and afraid of
incurring the degradation that such failure would
involve, had contrived this means of procuring defen-
dants to the charge. His ingenuity was not appre-
ciated, and he was condemned to be at once beheaded.
The other actors in the drama met with their deserts,
according to Chinese law ; and amid a shower of plati-
tudes from the Censorate, the case closed.

European journals are much exercised about the
Peking Gazette. Letters were often received addressed
to " the Editor," and asking for " a copy of his valuable
periodical," and proposing that he should take in the
Bumbleton Mercury, or arrange exchanges with the
Heliopolis Bulletin. One post-card came from Ger-
many : —

A la direction de la " Gazette "
to the expedition of the gazette (gazette french)

Peking,

TEACHERS AND TAUGHT.

99

X

^

il
^

Two columns of the

Pelting Saiiette,

asking for information as to terms of
subscription and dates of issue. Here,
by-the-bye, the Daily Telegraph might
have given the inquirer some startUng,
if not particularly accurate, information.
That estimable but mistaken organ says :
" The Chinese name of the paper is
the King Pau, which means ' Capital
Sheet.' It is one of the most enter-
prising journals in existence, having
lately taken to issuing three editions
daily. The one in the morning is
called the Hsing Pau, which means
' Business Sheet ' ; that in . the fore-
noon, Shuen Pau, or ' Official Sheet,'
which contains all the fashionable in-
telligence ; that in the evening, the
Titani Pau " (Oh Tzu-erh CM, and
" Peking Syllabary " !) " or ' Coun-
try Sheet ' ; and all three issues are
edited by members of the Hanlin Col-
lege."

The writer of this is only equalled
in his simple faith by the man who
wrote to the " Managing Editor of the
Pehing Gazette," and said he had an
advertisement he wanted to get inserted
in all the principal papers of the globe
— it was a balm, I believe, or a patent
pill — and what, was his charge for a

column ? Then, when the "member

7 *

100 WHERE GHINESES DBIVE.

of the Hanlin College " was long in replying, the
would-be advertiser sent a second note, indignantly
reminding him of his first, and remarking, in scath-
ing terms, on the way in which people appeared to do
business in Peking.

Among the novels we took up, or at any rate dipped
into, were the Yu Ghiao Li (Julien's Les Deux Gousines),
the Hao Ch'iu Ghuan (" The Fortunate Union," as
Davis translates it), the 8an Kuo Ghih, and the Hung
Lou Ming. They are all, as a rule, exceedingly uninte-
resting, and if they have been translated (as the first
two, and, I believe, the third, have been), it is because
a Chinese book is more or less like a chess problem, or
the fifteen puzzle, requiring a certain amount of inge-
nuity to work out : whereby translators are able to look
on themselves as men of acute mind and fertile in sug-
gestion. I seriously doubt whether even the translator
can take any interest in the matter of his translation,
unless his sympathies are very wide.

Occasionally, indeed, the weary plodder comes across
some familiar touch that makes him feel more akin to
his author. As this from the " Three Kingdoms," the
San Kuo Ghih, an old historical romance of the period
A.D. 190 to 265, during which three states strove for
the Empire — " Ch'en Wei coming in, Ying pointed to
Jung and said, ' That is a remarkable boy ! ' 'It
doesn't follow,' answered Wei, ' that those who are
clever in their youth will be clever when they grow up.'
On this Jung, in a tone of polite assent, observed,
' From what you say, Sir, you must have been clever
when you were young.' " (Chap, xi.)

TEAOEEBS ANB TAUGST. 101

The Hung Lou Meng is a satire in 120 chapters, and,
as it is usually bound, in some twenty volumes, on the
life of the upper classes in Peking during the eighteenth
century, and more particularly on the doings of Ming
Chu, a powerful noble in the reign of Ch'ien Lung,
who in the end was obliged to commit suicide by
strangling, while his property was confiscated. At
least, this is the view Hsii held of the object of
the book. To the foreign student it usually appears
as a succession of wearisome chapters — marriages,
intrigues, funerals — strung together without any ap-
parent purpose. There is a certain depressing sig-
nificance in the fact that one Chinese scholar who has
made a special study of the novel has chosen to regard
it simply as a text-book for colloquial phrases, and in
his Notes, which unfortunately exist as yet only in
manuscript, gives no hint of his theory, if he has
formed one, of the motive of the work, nor attempts,
by furnishing some idea of the plot, to excite in his
readers an interest in the story. Indeed, you might as
well expect a Chinese student of English to take an
interest in, say, Clarissa Harlowe.

I think that this last comparison is perhaps a little
too severe, for there are some passages in the Hung Lou
Meng of real beauty, which seem, it may be, all the
more beautiful from their plain setting. Among the
songs and versicles scattered through the book are some
that are exceedingly graceful. Art, perhaps, is too
little concealed, but that is at once the defect and the
beauty of Chinese poetry. It is, perhaps, impossible to
reproduce in English, in a way that shall suggest the

102 WEEBE GHINESES BBIVE.

original, the rhythm of Chinese verse. Indeed, no
English metre, except, I think, that of " Piers Plow-
man," with its short lines and alliteration (" I was
wery forwandered, And went me to reste " — I quote
from memory), at all resembles it. Sir John Davis, in
his Chinese Poetry, has, by the form in which he
has cast his metrical translations, certainly shown him-
self a better poet in his own language than a critic of
Chinese poems.

The chief difficulty is to preserve the parallelisms in
which the Chinese poet delights, and to find some
equivalent for the cadence of his verse (the " sequence
of the tones "), and each epitheton constans he has
studded it with. Here, in proof of the difficulty of such
a task, is an attempt to render part of a lovely ode in
the fifth chapter. It is sung by the fairies, unseen the
while, as their Queen comes to meet the hero in Dream-
land: —

She wons from the woodlands

Where wave her willows,
She hastes from her homestead
Fashioned of flowers :
And the birds are af right at her coming, in the trees of the garden,
And her shadow is flitting before her, and crosses the corridor.

Her sleeves, fairy-broidered, float behind her,
And the breezes are laden with fragrance of musk and of orchid :

Her robes, lily-woven, swaying softly,
In the light air are waking the tinkling of bracelet and anklet.

Like the blossoms of the peach in spring-time
are her dimpled cheeks,
Her halcyon tresses
as gathering storm-clouds in heaven :

TEAGHSB8 AND TAUGHT. 103

Like the pouting cherry newly-ripened
are her parted lips,
Than melon seeds whiter
the teeth her soft breathing perfumes.
The shapely waist, delicate dainty.
The light winds may waft it, the snows were too rough for it :

Her feathers and xjearls, shimmering flashing
Are green as the drake's wing, are white as the eider-down.

'Mid banks of flowers, passing repassing.

Most lovely when joyous, when angered most lovely :

O'er tarn and fountain to and fro flitting.

In semblance of flying, of floating in semblance.

Like a moth her eye-brows flutter, now smiling now frowning.
The eager lips are parted, tho' no word is spoken :

Like the lily are her footsteps, ever swaying ever bending.
She still seems to hasten, but still stays her going.

But to the student came relaxation sometimes, and
respite from Gazette and novel. And he would do as
he was done by.

104 WHUBE GHINESm BBIVK

IV. Winter.

Among the European communities at the Open Ports,
the lingua franca is certainly English. The large
amount of English trade, as compared with that of other
countries, would be sufficient to account for this ; but
English is equally the language of intercourse in Peking
— French with difficulty maintaining its traditional
right to be the language of high-officialdom. One
reason is the constant influx of men from the ports,
another, the fact that to the cosmopolitan staff of the
Customs no one is appointed who cannot read, write,
and speak English. The necessity thus laid upon
almost everyone in China to learn English, was the
reason why Herr Schmidt, who had lately come out,
and wished to sell his new pony, carefully got up a few
useful phrases. But he rather astonished a prospective
purchaser by suddenly introducing himself in the
words, " Farevell, I haf Schmidt, I am an horse."

Not only is English the common language of the
Europeans in China, but that curiously distorted form
of it (which is really baby-English in Chinese idiom)
known as ' Pidgin English,' is often used as a medium
of intercourse between Chinamen from different parts of
the Empire, who speak mutually unintelligible dialects.

WINTER. 105

The converse of all this often holds true in the case of
children brought up in China. They learn Chinese
from their amahs, and a French, an English, and a
German child, who do not know a word of each other's
native language, chatter away in Chinese— to the admi-
ration and envy of a newly-arrived student.

During the winter, which commences early in No-
vember, and lasts till the beginning of March, Peking is
shut out almost entirely from the rest of the world ; for
its highway, the Pei-ho, is frozen hard, and steamers
cannot enter the Gulf. And so there is a bustle of pre-
paration towards the end of October, a laying in of
stores and clothes and barrels of ale, for nothing heavy
will come up when the river is closed. The mails, that
have hitherto been sent via Chefoo and Tientsin, must
now travel overland some 800 miles from Ohinkiang, on
the Yang-tzii, by which they are delayed a fortnight or
so. Hence, when winter begins, we were often without
letters for nearly a month, though we had had a weekly
service through the summer. Then, when the winter
ended, the letters came like the tunes out of Baron
Munchausen's horn when it thawed, and if it were pos-
sible to have too much of a good thing, we had it then.
The mind could not digest such a plethora. But it was
worse with the popular man who went up country for
a couple of months. When he returned, he found an
extensive correspondence awaiting him, that had arrived
by various mails from different parts of the world. He
was conscientious and set to work, and read on steadily
(so he says), day and night, for three days, with hurried
intervals for refreshments. Then the English and

106 WHURE CBINE8E8 BBIVR

French mails came in together, and he succumbed.
He invested in 500 international post-cards, and printed
on them an impassioned appeal to his friends not to
write again till further notice. I consider that man
ungrateful. My letters were not numerous, and far too
large a proportion of them appeared to be of a commer-
cial character — but these I did not endanger my peace
of mind by Opening.

Besides the English and French mails, which came
on alternate weeks (or ought to have done : what they
usually did was to come on the same day, or on succes-
sive days, and leave us an interesting interval of a fort-
night with nothing new to read) ; there was an American
mail once a month, and a Russian mail every ten days.
This last went overland, through Kalgan and Kiakhta,
the border town, taking twelve days to go from Peking
to the latter place. As Kiakhta is a telegraph station,
and the rate for messages by the Russian line is very
much cheaper than by submarine cable from Shanghai,
telegrams used often to be sent by this route. An
overland wire now connects Tientsin with Shanghai, and
brings Peking within a day of the Western world.

Three or four years ago the Customs established a
postal service between Peking and Shanghai, being desi-
sirous of civilising the Chinese, and
adding to the Imperial revenue. The
rates were somewhat high at first, and
the scheme was in danger of falling
through. But, fortunately, the enthu-
siasm of the new agency proved its
safety; in their just pride in the

WINTEE. 107

undertaking, the directors had caused stamps to be
engraved, labelled " China," and mysterious with
sprawling dragons and Chinese characters. No sooner
had the news got about, than orders came flowing in
from the postage-stamp dealers of all parts of the world,
for the new " candarins," and success was assured.

I mentioned, I think, that we had a reading-room in
the Legation. For this the mails from Europe would
bring us the principal weekly periodicals, and a few of
the monthly magazines ; and from America, Harper,
Scribner (The Century), the Atlantic Monthly, and, that
we might have one American paper — these three, I
need hardly say, are written in English — the San
Francisco Bulletin. Any Peking resident might be
elected as a member of the reading-room. The sub-
scribers held a yearly meeting in the autumn to decide
on the papers to be taken in during the next year,
and to frame rules, which were very strict, seldom
observed, and never enforced. Bertram, our treasurer,
was an old offender. We used to post him up very
conspicuously on a black board kept for the purpose.
Nevertheless, when a new mail came in, Bertram
would come in too, smile benignantly at the board,
and then sidle out of the room with the new Punch.
It was in vain we pleaded that he was setting us a
bad example. So at last we gave way, and took out
all the new papers as soon as they arrived, thereby check-
mating Bertram, who lived so much farther off.

Constant study of the Bulletin showed us the advan-
tage of combination ; and so when an autumn meeting
was coming on, we met together in the mess-room

108 WHEBE CHINESE8 BBIVE.

and resolved ourselves into a caucus. Then we decided
that such papers as the Fortnightly were not suited to
the requirements of student interpreters ; the Field, on
the contrary, would supply a pressing want. We nearly
split over the relative merits of the St. James's and the
Pall Mall ; for our political opinions were not quite
unanimous, and the funds of the reading-room did not
allow of both being taken in. But we settled that
somehow, and on the day showed a solid and unwaver-
ing front that dismayed the enemy. In our triumph,
some of us were for carrying the Referee, but, being
strong, we were merciful, and forbore.

In April we had a sale of the papers, a private sale
among the subscribers, Bertram in great form as
auctioneer. The most lively bidding was for Punch;
after that, perhaps, for the Gornhill and the American
illustrated magazines. The Edinburgh Review excited
little interest, and the Quarterly went to one man (but
that was his good fortune) for 10 cents. One of the
Chinese attendants at the office — a t'ing-chai as he is
called — was a good hand at binding books, and reaped
a small harvest after the sale.

In days of old the students, being then, so report
says, all men of wit, brought out at intervals what they
called the Pelting Punch. Just now it is out of print,
so that, to my regret, I cannot obtain a copy. By my
time a great change had come over the spirit of
students' dreams : we took our pleasure sadly. We
found the cares of life press too heavily on our shoul-
ders to allow us to edit Punches. The strains of by-
gone students had power to move us yet; but we flung

WINTER. 109

away ambition. We could not hope to win by it ;
and tacitly confessed ourselves degenerate. They were
giants, indeed, in those days.

During the winter, the chief amusement inside the
Legation was the bowling-alley. The building itself
was substantial enough, but the alleys were always
going wrong. The planks at the bowler's end, where
the ball started (and which the ball started), had to be
repaired every year. The indefatigable Bertram would
bring in a Chinese carpenter and explain matters. The
carpenter would look round: "Planking, 4 feet by 6,
two men could put that right in a day : say five dollars."
Then the men would set to work and find that all the
boards were fastened firmly into an iron frame and
pierced at intervals by iron rods, and that on a mode-
rate computation their work was cut out for the next
month. Then the contract had to be re-arranged.
But Bertram says he has used up all the carpenters in
the city now, and will have to import some if he still
wants to get favourable terms.

Those alleys were certainly trying. It took some
days to get into the way of them at all, and when at
last you were beginning to make doubles (= knocking
all the ten pins down by the first ball), a plank went
wrong and altered the roll entirely. They have some good
alleys at Tientsin, and men would visit Peking occa-
sionally who rather despised a score of 250 (300 is the
maximum), and thought a man hopeless if he got anything
under 200. Then they came round to our alley and
were chosen in on one side or the other, and put down
to play third or fourth. As they watched the Peking

110 WHEBE CHINESHS DBIVK

men with much trouble getting eight or nine, they
could not prevent their faces from expressing something
of the pity and wonder that filled their souls. Then
their turn would come on, and they would score six or
five, and the wonder was changed to contempt — for our
unhappy alley.

Our mess dinners were arranged between the mess
and wine caterers and the cook. The largest dinner
that has been given by the students was, I believe, one
in which forty men took part. The special reason for
giving the dinner (beyond the desire to see our friends)
was, if I remember rightly, the pride that puffed up the
mess when the President announced the arrival of two
large plum-puddings from Tientsin. But as the dinner
drew to a close, the guests seemed to expect that
some speech would be made to them, setting forth the
great occasion that had assembled them all together.
To have put it down to the puddings would have been,
we felt, a bathos ; besides, the puddings had not turned
out altogether the success we had hoped. Fortunately,
just at this juncture, one of the guests had a birthday,
and that made everything right. But it was a critical
moment.

The congratulatory speeches made and acknowledged,
we settled down to the more serious business of song-
singing. A duet by the German students was followed
by the Match-box song from Professor Pavlovski, Our
matches are supplied us, more or less indirectly, by a
well-known Scandinavian firm, and light only on the
box. The boys having handed round match-boxes., just

WINTEB.

Ill

as a pew-opener may distribute hymn-books, the Pro-
fessor begins : —

J' Allegro maestoso. P m .

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och fos-for

Tan - tan - tan -da en-dastmot la-dans

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plan. Tan - da en - dast mot lad - ans plan.

Then Bertram is called on for a song, and protests
he does not know one. There is a general shout, " Oh
Bertie ! where do you expect to go to ? ' Lord Bate-
man,' Bertie ! Silence for Mr. Bertram's song ! "
Bertram smiles gently and says, " Well, if Paley will
lead the chorus ? But I don't remember the words
very well." Paley promises that he will start a chorus,
and Bertram begins : —

Lord Bateman was [reflectivelij] — Lord Bateman was [a long
pause] —
Lord Bateman was \trium/phantly'\ — Lord Bateman !

* I give this as O'Hara wrote it. He translated it as well : —

The Wenersborg Match-Manufactory's Patent

Paraffine-dipped

SAFETY MATCHES,

Without sulphur or phosphorus.

Light only on the surface of the box.

112 WRERE GHINBSES BBIVE.

Paley —

For the stormy winds do blow

And the raging waters flow,
And we jolly sailor-boys were sitting up aloft,
And the land-lubbers lying down below, below, below,

[Emphatically'] —
And the land-lubbers lying down below.

A silence : then, " Now, Bertram, the second verse ! "
Bertram says, with a puzzled air, " I was just trying to
think what it was." Paley suggests, " something about
Lord Bateman." Then Bertram's face lights up, and he
says cheerfully, " Ah, yes —

Lord Bateman was [sadly] — Lord Bateman was [dubiously] —
Lord Bateman was [gleefully] — ^Lord Bateman !

Paley—

^We shoulder arms, we march, we march away . . .

Chorus —

We shoulder arms. . . .

Bertram turns to talk to his neighbour. The Presi-
dent, indignantly, "Now, Bertie, there are some more
verses ! " Bertram, in an injured tone, " There are, —
several ; but I can't remember them." The neighbour
whispers something. " Oh, of course, ' Lord Bate-
man' — ■

Lord Bateman was [hopefully] — Lord Bateman was [indif-
ferently] —
Lord Bateman was [despondently] — Lord Bateman !

Paley and Chorus —

Come landlord fill the flowing bowl . . .

After this, Lawson gives us "Bosalie the Prairie
Flower." He has lungs and forehead of brass, and

WINTBB. 113

rolls the song out with most infectious enjoyment, till
he culminates fortissimo in the last verse —

Then the Angels whispered,
Softly in her ear . . .

There is a pause to recover breath — for the chorus

requires a. good deal of breath — and then O'Hara is

asked for his song (each of us has his own, taboo to the

rest), and begins the "Vicar of Bray." He is very

nervous, and has asked Gordon to strike up the chorus

directly he has finished singing : —

In good King Charles's golden days,

When loyalty no harm meant,
A — a — a —

Gordon —

That this is law I will maintain —

O'Hara—

A zealous High Churchman was I —

Gordon —

That I '11 be Vicar of Bray, Sir !

O'Hara—

To teach my flock I never missed
Kings were by God appointed,
And — and — [catches sight of Gordon's mouth opening

and hurries v/p] —
And damned [con. express.'] are those who do
resist
Or touch the Lord's anointed ! —

" Thank goodness that 's over,"
Gordon —

That this is law . . . — &c., &o., ad infin.
Then we called on Thierry. He tried to evade it,
declaring he was bashful, and only knew one song.

8

114 WHERE CHINE8JES DBIVE.

However, he would sing that through, if we would pro-
mise to listen patiently. We promised. Then he sang
thirty-three verses of his song — there were eight lines in
each verse. It hegan to get late, and somebody whis-
pered to the President. As Thierry commenced the thirty-
fourth verse, the President rose, and asked solemnly,
" Thierry, are there many more verses of that song ? "

Thierry said, " Only twenty-one, and I shan't be "

" Gentlemen," observed the President —
" Grod save our gracious Queen."

When we were dining more strictly en famille, we
were partial to hymns — Moody and Sankey the favou-
rites, as being the most noisy. The great advantage
hymns possessed over secular songs was that the tunes
vpere simple, and everybody knew the words. Of the
topical songs that abounded in the Elizabethan era of
student life, the days of the Peking Punch, few or none
had come down to us. Some faint reflection of their
brilliancy occasionally flashed on our horizon, the
summer-lightning, as it were, of poetic wit — and
Gordon's addition to a popular ditty was received not
without applause : —

Says Aaron to Moses,

There are across the seas
Some Stu-dent Interpreters

A-learning of Chinese :
At least, that 's what their worthy Chief,

Sir Thomas Wade, supposes :
They 're mostly singing comic songs —

" Oh, let 'em sing," says Moses,

As it may interest someone to know what is procur-
able in the way of food in the depth of a Peking winter

WINTEB. 116

(I know it used to interest us very much), I subjoin the
authorised version of our cook's bill of fare on this
occasion : —

Menu.

Hare soup.
Mandarin fish,
Bouch^es a la Keine.
Aspic of quails.
Eoast beef.
Perdrix farcies.
Wild boar.
Meringues.
Plum pudding.

Dessert.

In Peking, at any rate, the bill of fare was usually
written in Chinese, on an oblong strip of red paper,
and known as the hsi tan, or " Paper of the Feast."
There is a story that at a dinner-party, a lady, one of
the guests, took up this bill of fare, and, after looking
through it very carefully for a minute or two, put it
down with an air of disappointment. Her host poUtely
expressed his regret that his cook had prepared so poor
a course, and said that he really must dismiss him.
" Oh dear no ; it isn't that at all," she answered. " I
was merely looking at the paper to find the only cha-
racter I know. That is, I don't know what it means,
but it looks like an inverted V." " Dear ! dear ! " said

8 *

^M ^ i;^

WINTEB. 117

The 8th moon 5th day. Paper of the
Feast.

o

Onion flower soup.

c3

a Roast crab flesh.

Boiled little chicken.

Boast sheep flesh.

OS

a

o
O

Ice Chi-lin.
Long original cakes.

^** The sweetmeats are better known, perhaps, as " Ice Cream "
and ' Finger Biscuits," confections which we maintained to be of
an affinity almost chemical, but which the cook regarded as things
apart, t6 be served up separately.

118 WHERE CHINESES DRIVE.

the host, in a tone of alarm, " I hope you didn't find it !
That cook of mine believes we can eat most things,
but I did think he drew the line at cannibalism ! " For
^^ is the common character for ' a man.'

This is one of the current stories that every new
comer has to hear sooner or later — like the freshman
and the tale of the man with a short gown — and I
insert it here with a solemn warning to any tyro who
(for such is the way of tyros) may wish to repeat it,
either to leave it alone, which is best, or to leave it
vague. If he applies it, as thus, "At Mr. E.'s dinner
the other day, Mrs. C. . . .," his auditor will probably
remark, " I thought it was Mme. F., who, when Herr
von D. was dining with them, asked her boy why they
had no A (jen) for dinner that day, thinking that it

meant potatoes, and wishing to show her knowledge of
Chinese." At which the tyro will feel sad, or, if he be
disputatious, will argue on the superior probability of
his own version.

The strong point in our larder in winter-time was
game. The Mongols, who came down from the north,
brought in a frozen state partridges, pheasants, a sort
of wild barn-door fowl (if it can be so described — the
Chinese call it a " wind chicken "), quails, wild boar,
huang yang (a kind of small deer), hares (which were
known as " wild cat "), and other game they had
trapped or shot. In the south, by-the-bye, game is
always shot. It is often trapped as a preliminary, it is
true : but in that case the natives hang it up on a con-
venient wall and fire at it. This is because a prejudice

WINTEB. 119

which the foreigners apparently entertained against
poisoned birds led them to suspect anything in which
no pellets of lead or iron could be found. I believe the
northern game is above suspicion. It is brought into
Peking on the long string of camels that so attracted
the attention of a new comer that he asked Lovell, who
sat next to him at table, " Where do the camels go ? "
Lovell was a little absent-minded, and, looking at his
interrogator through his spectacles, muttered, " Where
do camels go ? I don't know. Did you ever see a

dead ? " "I don't mean when they die," said the

other, testily, and went elsewhere for information.

Dinners were all very well, very well indeed, at
Peking. The food was good, and you knew and liked
everyone you met, wherever you went. The trouble
was in getting there. The roads were covered with ice,
or mud, or dust, according to the weather, so that it
was almost as bad to ride as to go in a cart. As a rule,
the latter was the only feasible way, and then you
arrived at your journey's end considerably ruffled, and
cramped and bruised besides. At one or two places
private carts were kept. In these the wheels, instead
of being in the centre of the cart, were placed further
back, and a "well " formed, so that the occupant could
sit down in an orderly way instead of having to squat
cross-legged. But the ordinary cart that you hired
from a stand was as I have described it already. For
there were stands, with carts and mules mixed up in the
queerest fashion : carts with the shafts in the air, carts
with the shafts on the ground ; mules lying down, or
rolling about, or talking scandal apparently with other

120 WHEBE VHINESES BBI7E.

mules while their drivers slept. When a fare arrives,
he stirs up the nearest carter, who dives wildly among
the chaos of mules, selects one, sorts it into a cart, and
is ready to go to the other side of the city.

The carters, or rather our boys for them, would
charge four tiao (say Is. 3d.) for taking us anywhere.
As we knew that the Chinese paid rather less than a
tiao, there used to be endless disagreements between
master and boy on this point. A tariff of fares was
suggested, but it fell through. The boys would not
countenance such foolishness. Paley wanted to hire a
cart for the day, and told his boy to get one, saying it
w^ould be eight tiao (half-a-crown). The boy imme-
diately replied that it was impossible ; the regular charge
was a dollar, or twelve tiao. There was no convincing him
that he must be mistaken, except by producing a carter
who would do it for less than a dollar. That, Paley
considered, would be conclusive ; and he was accordingly
delighted when, after long searching, he found a man
who consented to take nine tiao. He brought him
back in triumph, and exhibited him to the boy. The
boy looked at him from head to foot, then said, con-
temptuously, " That 's a missionary carter ! " " Well ? "
asked Paley. "He's a missionary carter," repeated
the boy, " and a Christian, so can afford to do things at
a loss. He looks for his profit and reward in the next
world ! " — and the boy turned away with the disgusted
air of a man who finds himself unfairly handicapped.

The worst time of the year in which to go about
Peking in a cart was during or just after the rainy

WINTEE. 121

season (June to August). The main streets have all a
raised roadway of earth, from fifteen to twenty feet
broad, running down the centre, while on each side is a
footpath, three or four feet lower, and beyond that again
the sewers, in the most wretched condition, and full of
gaping pitfalls. A regular inspection of these is pro-
vided for by law, and has taken place at intervals, with
a striking and lamentable absence of good results.
They discovered recently what appeared to them to
account in some way for this. The method of in-
spection is to open man-holes along the drain at
intervals of half a mile or so, put a coolie into one
hole and await his reappearance at the next. The
coolie told oflf for this duty in one of the main streets
had always performed it with great apparent ease, and
the inspectors had congratulated themselves on the
cleanliness of that portion of the drain ; so much so,
indeed, that they invited a new colleague to come and
see the man at work. They started him at one end,
and immediately hurried off to the second man-hole to
wait for him .... They found him there already,
quietly knocking the ashes out of his pipe. Now, the
most expeditious coolie cannot do half a mile in a
Peking drain in something under four minutes. So
they had that coolie out, and bambooed him a bit, to
make him explain things. Then he said that "he was
not the coolie at all, but his brother, and had instruc-
tions from him to wait at that end for a reasonable time
— say half an hour— and then appear as the other man.
The inspectors had come before he had time to get pro-
perly into the drain. As for his brother, he would

122 WHERE CEINE8ES DBIVE.

probably be found about ten yards that side of the first
manhole. It was impossible to get any farther.

When the rains come, large portions of some of the
low-lying streets are turned into muddy pools : roadway",
footpath, sewer, alike indistinguishable. Carts trying to
keep to the roadway have been known to topple over on
to the footpath, and the people in them, unable to extri-
cate themselves, to be drowned before their doorsteps.
But usually if there is a flood the road is staked out by
long bamboos, just as one sees a sandbank marked out
at the entrance to a harbour — only for the opposite
reason. To ride, where it is possible, is perhaps safer.
But sometimes coming home over streets that are really
a sheet of ice, only covered with dust to look like
respectable roads, the pony will stumble and slide, then
stop and shiver and almost cry, until regard for your
own limbs, if not for the poor beast, makes you dismount
and go afoot.

One pitch-dark night of wind and rain, several of us
who had ridden out to dine said that we should prefer
to walk home. Paley declared that he would ride, how-
ever, and went off. We others had a mafoo with a
lantern, to show us the way down the narrow hii-t'ung
full of holes and puddles. It was little use trying to
avoid them, and so we tramped and splashed along,
seeing nothing but blackness all round. At the mouth
of the alley the mafoo suddenly stooped and picked up
something out of a puddle, saying, " Pa lao-yeh's cap,"
in an unconcerned way, and went on calmly. We did
not like it at all. Paley was inclined at times to be
reckless, and had a theory that the safest way on a dark

WINTER 12B

night or over slippery streets was to gallop. So we
peered as far as we could into the ditches as we went
along, and probed the shadows with our sticks, getting
more uneasy as we drew near the Legation. We has-
tened to Paley's room. He was there, with a steaming
glass of toddy, a dressing-gown, and the Light of
Asia. We did not like this either, somehow. Here
were all the elements of a romantic adventure : Peking,
a dark night, rain falling in torrents^ a runaway horse,
a cap found in a pool ... it was too bad ! But he
comforted us a little by saying that his pony had bolted
and had dashed him against the upper bar of the gate-
way at the entrance of the hii-t'ung (it was too dark to
see it), and had left him in a confused state and a puddle
for a minute or two. The pony and he went home by
instalments after that.

Paley used to say that he preferred the Peking streets
to the primness and uniformity of a macadamised road.
There was a certain picturesqueness about them :
whereas you cannot get any artistic effects out of an
asphalte pavement or a succession of area railings.
Perhaps he was right ; but it required a severe cold in
the head, or the constant use of a smelling-bottle, for
the ordinary man to fall in with his views. The
Pekingese themselves carry about a small piece of rhu-
barb, I think it is, much as we do camphor, when they
walk abroad. I think to be favourably impressed by a
Peking thoroughfare it should be viewed from a captive
balloon, at a height of, say 600 feet.

But every now and then some of the streets were put
into repair, by the very simple process of plastering

124 WHEBE CHINE8ES BBIVE.

them with mud, and keeping off the traffic till this was
dry. One such occasion was the marriage of the late
Emperor, commonly known as T'ung-Ohih, in 1874;
another, the funeral of the late Empress Dowager. At
such times not only are the roads, over which the
wedding or the funeral procession will pass, carefully
made smooth, and all traffic interdicted, but the road-
way is screened by matting from the gaze of the
common people. There is a good description of such a
scene in Simpson's Meeting the Sun. A circular is always
sent to the foreign legations, requesting the members of
them to avoid these roads between certain days, or
hours ; so that few Europeans have a chance of seeing
the spectacle. If I remember rightly, Mr. Simpson
says that he saw the bridal procession through the
chinks of a shutter in the upper room of an opium
den. The State procession always passes along the
streets at night or in the early morning ; and this was
why the little party of foreigners who watched from the
roof of a shed the return of the Spirit Tablet of the late
Empress over the Northern Canal Bridge, had to take
their seats at the dreadfully early hour of 4 a.m. I was
not (Sne of them. I consider the curiosity that will drag
people out of bed, in winter too, before 11, or, as a con-
cession- to weaker brethren, say 10, in the morning, to
be morbid and dangerous. Besides, processions are
common enough in Peking ; I met three one day, two
marriages and a funeral. The Chinese undertakers are
more enterprising than ours ; they will undertake with
equal readiness for a wedding or for a burial. The
matter is simple, though the paraphernalia is [ought

WINTER. 125

you to say, are ?] very complex. All the undertaker
does is to catch some fifty or a hundred loafers, beggars,
and ragamuffins, throw an embroidered cloak over their
shoulders, and put a cap of the proper pattern on their
heads and a banner, or emblem of some kind, in their
hands, and start them in some sort of order. They say
that an Imperial procession is much the same, except
that the robes are shabbier, and the bearers dirtier and
more ragged.

There is an intimate connection between the private
marriage processions and the State procession that forms
part of an Imperial funeral. For as soon as the death
of an Emperor or Empress Dowager is reported, every-
body who wants to get married hastens to do so ; since
marriages will presently be forbidden by Imperial edict
until the prescribed term of public mourning is over.
The tailors must make a fine thing of it ; for a Chinese
trousseau includes clothes for bridegroom as well as for
bride. Our boys would always be asking leave at such
a time : one had to marry his daughter down in T'ung-
chow, another wanted to take a wife himself, and a
third was to be a guest at both weddings. The thing
got monotonous; perhaps our sympathies were less
lively than they should have been.

The good effects of an Imperial procession in smooth-
ing the streets and clearing away the offensive wattle-
and-daub huts that line the roads, last, unfortunately,
but a very short time. Presently, these are as full of
ruts and filth as before, and as dangerous to an unwary
passenger. At night, a lantern is carried by every cart
£iBd by every foot-passenger. Qn. it, if the man is of

126 WHEBU ORINHSjEJS BEIVE.

any consequence at all, are painted in red characters his
name, title, and address. Hsii, my teacher, always
carried a lantern, even on bright moonlight nights. I
believe because he thought it was the respectable thing
to do : he said, because the dogs always attack a man
who has not one.

Dogs swarm in Peking, and, with the pigs, are the
scavengers of the 'city. Between them and foreigners
there is a feud of long standing. They seldom venture
to attack a European, for, in spite of their size and
somewhat fierce appearance, they are great curs ; but
they stand at a distance and bark in a peculiarly irri-
tating way, which incites the stranger to take up the
nearest stone and fling it madly at them. Their owners
do not seem to mind ; indeed, very seldom expostulate
at all, and, when they do, prefer to put the question
generally, " Whether it is the correct thing to rock
dogs ? " — to which the natural and apparently satisfac-
tory reply is, "What else were dogs and rocks made
for ? " The natives think it over for some time, shake
their heads softly and solemnly, gently kick the dog in
question, and depart. The northern Chinaman — at any
rate the Pekingese — is, I think, naturally averse to a row,
and would much prefer to argue out any point of dispute.
In England, if you tell an angry man to be calm, the
chances are that he will resent it and go for you ; but
an angry Chinaman pauses to reflect whether, on the
whole, calmness would not be the most paying course,
and if he (as he usually does) comes to the conclusion
that it would, becomes calm accordingly. I have no
doubt that a Chinese dog would be equally reasonable, if

WINTEB. 127

one had time to try the experiment ; but on the whole it
is simpler to rock him.

Foreign dogs do not get on with Chinese ones any
better than their masters. Keary had a bull-dog, who
was a source of continual trouble to him. So long as
Keary was content to wait while that bull-dog polished
off a street-full of curs in succession, it was all right ;
but if Keary was in a hurry, and insisted on his leaving
the others alone for that afternoon, he would resent it
as an uncalled-for interference on his master's part, and
go home in dudgeon with a considerably diminished
opinion of him,

I have said nothing about our own dogs, and yet they
formed no unimportant part of our mess. First of all
was Paley's black retriever. Paley was our President,
and sat at the head of our table ; while his dog — the
Pup, as Paley continued to style him, even in mature
doghood — lay at his feet all dinner-time. Paley would
call him at intervals, "Come up, you! " then, as he
put his nose in his hand, " Come completely up," — and
the Pup stood on his hind legs, his fore-paws on Paley's
shoulders, gazing earnestly in his face. After dinner,
Paley would sling him over his shoulder, and walk off,
the Pup pretending vigorous approval with his tail.
Poor old Gyp ! He went with his master to retrieve
among the brushwood, and came back the shadow of
his former self, affectionate still — 'he was that to the
last — but listless, and later on a confirmed valetudi-
narian. In his puppyhood he had been grievously
bullied by Randolph's deerhound, and when he became
a dog, remembered his wrongs and avenged them. And

128 WHEBE GEINESES DBIVE.

SO the deerhound, Cassius — his lean and hungry look
gave him his name — had to be banished from the
mess-room. The right of quarrelling there was reserved.
But old age and suffering made them forget their
feuds, and, when Cassius died, Gyp followed him to
the grave as chief mourner, in, alas, a very rusty suit
of black.

Then there was Ferguson. She was bought by
Herington for a dollar, as a curio. She combined so
many types of dog, that it was felt to be difficult to
find a ready-made name for her. She had as much
claim, or as little, to be called Juno as Fifine or
Lulu. Herington, in his perplexity, declared that he
could not do better than call her by some simple un-
compromising name of universal application, such as
Jones or Mary Ann. He finally, however, borrowed an
idea from the Innocents Abroad, and styled her Fer-
guson. Even this had its drawbacks. When distin-
guished visitors of that name met Herington running
wildly down the Legation, calling out, "Hullo, I say,
hi ! Ferguson ! Come here, you little beast ! " they
were apt at first to misconstrue his meaning, and address
him coldly. And they were not always soothed by an
introduction to their namesake. She had a tail curved
like a French horn, of which she was not unjustly
proud. It was the sole but sufficient foundation on
which Herington rested his theory as to her breeding.
In vain Gordon pointed out that she had the head of a
diminutive mastiff, and the body of a turnspit. Hering-
ton would hold her suspended by that tail for minutes,
while Ferguson blinked in triumphant satisfaction at

WINTEB. 129

her detractor. Gordon had to console himself with
Puck.

Puck was a black and white Peking pug, and G-ordon's
pride. He was all head and shoulders, like a tadpole
or a small battering-ram, and was as beautifully ugly as
any dog-fancier could desire. In his method of pro-
ceeding, Gordon professed to trace a resemblance to the
aery sprite, his namesake ; to the rest of us it appeared
like a pumpkin coming down-stairs, or a railway-engine
with the hind-wheels off. Gordon used to observe, in a
complacent pharisaical sort of way, as he contemplated
what he called Puck's " fairy form," that he was a very
different sort of dog from Ferguson. Indeed, that was
the only way, he said, in which Ferguson could be de-
fined, by negatives, as it were. She was not like any
sort of dog you can name or conceive. Herington,
indeed, spent many unprofitable hours trying to match
her, as though she were a blade of ribbon-grass. At
last he announced, with a certain amount of pomp and
finality — like the Pope ex cathedra — ^that she was unique.
After this, Gordon was all for labelling her as a new
species, not to say genus, and sending her to the Zoo.

The Chinese year is lunisolar, and they still keep to
the old Metonic cycle. Though this seems to us a
clumsy method, yet it has one great advantage, in that
their day of the month always gives the age of the
moon — the first being no moon, and the 15th full moon.
As the sky of Peking is cloudless during a great part of
the year, the inhabitants get the full benefit of what-
ever moon there is. This is why the meetings of the

9

130 WHUBE GRINE8ES BEIVE.

Peking Debating Society take place on or about the
15th of each Chinese month. This society was started
by, and is almost entirely made up of, the Protestant
missionaries in the city, and in many respects strongly
resembles a parochial Mutual Improvement Association
at home. The meetings are held at the house of one
of the members, and, after the usual opening, the chair-
man requests the proposer of a debate, or the reader of
a paper, to begin. When he has finished, the brethren
are called on, in order, to make remarks on what he has
said — which they are not slow, as a rule, to do. There
was one man who had certainly a ready flow of speech,
but he seemed a little mixed occasionally, as when he
said, " We get no help from analogy, and there is
nothing else with which we can compare it." And
again, " The cream of the question lies at the bottom."
But then he had studied Chinese for some years, and
it is apt to unsettle most men.

The subjects of these debates were usually, and natu-
rally, connected with China, and more especially of late
with the burning (or rather smoking) opium question.
Once, however, it was announced that the Kev. Dr. Z.
was to read a paper " On the Best Way of Spending
Money." This greatly excited Gordon, who does not
care much about opium disputes, but really thought he
ought to know something about spending money, and
he was exceedingly curious to know if Dr. Z. had
found out a new way. When the evening came, Gordon
discovered that the half had not been told him. The
subject of the paper should have read, " The Best Way
of Spending Money in Chinese Missions : Is it advisable

WINTEB. 131

to give money to the Chinese ? " He had long made up
his mind on that point, and left presently, grieved that
time should be wasted in discussing self-evident untruths.

We were apt to get rather hazy notions of time in
Peking. In the Legation, noon was marked by twelve
strokes of a wooden mallet on a cracked iron bell,
chained to a tree near the gate ; but the time of striking
the bell was settled in various ways. Besides the sun-
dial which was alluded to as spoiling the feng-shui of
the Minister's entrance, somebody with a turn that way
would occasionally take solar observations. But as a
rule our time was given us by the Professor of Astro-
nomy at the Peking College. The cook went by the
mess-room clock : what that went by was a mystery.
There was nothing wrong with the works that we could
see (we used to take them out and examine them), but
one day it would be half-an-hour too late, another, an
hour too fast. Such irregularity must have been bad
for it : I am sure it was not good for our digestions.
At last the mess coolie made a compromise : the dress-
ing-gong was sounded at half-past 11 by the clock, and
the tiffin-gong at noon by the Legation bell. The only
dravrback was, that sometimes the Legation bell sounded
before the clock struck 11.30, and it puzzled the coolie
to know whether he ought not to strike the second gong
first. But a dressing-gong when tiffin was nearly over
seemed on the whole rather an anomaly : so he gave up
the problem in despair.

After all, time was of little consequence in Peking.
I never wound up my own clock except now and then

9 *

132 WHERE CHINESES BBWE.

for amusement, and, as I did not set it to any time in
particular, it used to have a curious effect on too con-
fiding and watchless visitors, who would be deluded
into staying till it was too late to dine at home, and be
triumphantly secured for dinner at the mess.

It certainly was a comfort for a lazy man, that there
were no trains to catch ; but then there vrere the city
gates. These closed at sunset, and if you were shut
out, there was no getting in again till sun-rise the next
morning ; and probably, as hardly anyone carries money
about with him in Peking, you had not a cent to buy
such food as could be had. The same rule as to closing
holds with the gates between the Tartar and the Chinese
city ; only in this case they are opened at midnight to
relieve guard. The shortest way to the Legation from
the country outside often lay through both cities. Mr.
Lord, who was visiting Peking, was one of a riding party
along the western wall of the city. Staying behind to
look at something, he missed his companions. It was
unfortunate, as it was getting dark, and he could not
speak a word of Chinese. However, he found himself
near a gate and entered. Presently, as he rode on, he
came to another gate, and, to his surprise, everybody
made violent gestures, directing him to go through it.
No, as he said, he had had experience of Chinamen and
their ways in his own part of the world, and was not to
be fooled. He had only just entered the city, and was
it likely that he would go out again ? And so he con-
tinued his ride, unmoved. He seemed a long time
getting to the Legation, though, and at last made signs
to a man to show him the way. The man, naturally,

WINTER 133

did not know where he wanted to go, but with great
presence of mind took him to an inn, and left, with Mr.
Lord's last dollar. Meanwhile, as it grew dark, and Mr.
Lord did not return, there was trouble and commotion
in the Legation. The Chinese were communicated
with, and a search party finally discovered him trying to
persuade the innkeeper to take a chit in discharge of
his bill. When he was informed that he was in the
Chinese city, and had kept himself out of the Tartar
city by refusing to enter the second gate, he was at first
inclined to be incredulous. Then he reviewed his
opinion of his own sagacity. A nice sense of justice
seemed to require it.

It is not difficult, however, with a little practice, to
find one's way about Peking — for, as I said, nearly all
the streets run east or north. But even so, there were
short cuts, narrow alleys, pleasanter to walk through
than the main streets, as being cleaner (or less dirty),
and freer from traffic, and dogs and beggars. The day
on which a good knowledge of these short cuts was most
useful, was the 1st of January. Some say that the
Americans got the custom of calling on their friends on
New Year's Day from the Dutch, and they again from
the Chinese : but, however introduced, it has become
firmly established among the Europeans in Peking.
On that day everyone is expected to call on each lady-
resident in turn. Now the centre of the Tartar city is
occupied by the large enclosure of the Imperial City,
and the complete circuit of this has to be made by any-
one who wishes to do his duty thoroughly. For, besides
the Legations and other houses near the south wall,

134 WSEBE GSINFSES DBIVK

between the Ha-ta and the Ch'ien (" Front ") Gates,
there are estabHshments of missionaries and others in
the south-west (in the Jung-hsien Hii-t'ung, or Velvet-
thread Lane) ; in the west, near the P'ing-tse Gate ; in
the north, not far from the Hon Men, or Back Gate of
the Imperial City ; in the great street that runs north
from the Ha-ta to the An-ting Gate (by which our
troops entered in 1860) ; and in the south-east corner
of the city. The Japanese Legation, too, is in the
north-east in a hii-t'ung running east from the Ha-ta
Street.

Eoughly speaking, the houses of the European resi-
dents lie on the circumferences of two circles, one very
large and surrounding the Imperial City, and one, a
small one, taking in the Legations and the various
houses belonging to the Customs' Establishment. A
map of Pekin ought to be appended to the suggested
Guide for Calling, with these circles marked in red and
blue, for the benefit of the energetic or conscientious,
and the lazy or poniless, respectively. One of the
former class would have to start on his round very early
in the day, taking a mounted mafoo with him. He will
probably, I may say certainly, do the outer circuit first,
and, as most callers go round with the sun in running
their course of duty, the ladies in the west of the city
will receive nearly all their visitors before noon. The
same men consequently are being continually met,
but that only adds to the amusement of the thing
and affords food for conversation — sometimes much
needed.

One year, several men met together and bound them-

WINTER. 186

selves by certain rules to be observed in calling. The
chief of these were under the heading of " Conversation."
Rule xix. ran : The practice of small-talk being inju-
rious to the mind and lowering to the dignity of the
nobler sex, it is hereby resolved that no member of this
Association shall be permitted, under any pretence
whatsoever, to answer or in any way notice such ques-
tions as the following : —

" Have you been long in China ? "

" How do you like Peking ? "

" The roads here are dreadful — are they not ? '

" Did you ride, or come in a cart ? "
Should any remarks be addressed to him containing
any, even the most distant, allusions to the weather, he
shall at once rise, and solemnly depart. If the allusion
is very direct, he may scream. This will not fail to
lead the conversation into a higher channel.

Rule XX. was as follows : The choice of suitable
subjects for conversation having been left to the Com-
mittee, they have, after mature reflection, drawn up the
accompanying list. A member is only entitled to speak
on one subject, which will be assigned to him by ballot.
Any infraction of this rule will be visited by excommu-
nication.

List of Subjects.

The Lost Ten Tribes. The Atomic Theory.

Ostriches. Torpedoes.

The Digamma. Oscar Wilde.

Sardanapalus. Jupiter's Moons.

The Eozoon Canadense. Sugar-candy.

136 WHEBE CEINE8ES BBIV^.

Rules V. to xiii. regarded the manner of calling and
the length of the call. Not less than three, or more
than five, men were to call together. The time allowed
for the visit was as long as it would take the most dys-
peptic of them to eat a sponge cake and drink a cup of
tea. Anyone who failed to speak on his subject during
that time (for the regulations regarding these subjects
members were referred to Rule xx.), was compelled
immediately on his arrival at the next place of call to
eat a square of butter-scotch (a supply, by Rule xii., was
to be issued by the Hon. Secretary), and to simulta-
neously commence the conversation.

We felt the superior beauty of such a system as
this, but reluctantly confessed that it was too hard for
us, and continued in the beaten track.

At one or two central places, the ladies are kind
enough to provide a standing tiffin, or to tell their
friends at what hour tiffin will be on the table; and
for this the gratitude of many tired and hungry callers
is due. The Japanese Legation was always gaily deco-
rated on New Year's Day, with archways of artificial
flowers and lanterns. The wife of the Minister received
her guests prettily dressed in the native costume. By
her side was a tray containing wafer biscuits cut into
the shape of leaves and flowers and coloured red,
yellow, or green. These she would offer through her
interpreters (for, unfortunately, she knew no foreign
language), who — they spoke English and French
respectively — relieved one another according to the
nationality of the visitor. Generally, I think, caUing on
New Year's Day must have been as much of a trial as

WINTER. 135*

a pleasure to the ladies. They had, at any rate in the
inner circle, to be ready to receive visitors all day long,
to pour out tea for them, and cut cake, and make con-
VCTsation for people they had never seen before, and
possibly might not see again till the next 1st of
January. But they decreed that we should call ; and
we — we were, of course, their very obedient servants.

Some festive proceeding usually ushered in the New
Year. There is a homeless club in Peking whose only
visible local habitation inside the city is the bar attached
to the Skating Eink. Close to the city wall, at the back
of the Legation, is a yard on which in winter-time a
large mat shed is erected. The yard is then flooded
from an adjoining well, and a skating rink formed. One
side of this is now occupied by the small building I
spoke of, and which, besides the bar, contains a minia-
ture dressing-room. On New Year's Eve the whole is
illuminated, a Christmas-tree set up, and a supper pro-
vided. A piano and a hurdy-gurdy give a completeness
to the effect ; and so the old year is skated out.

After one such occasion, some five or six of us decided
that it would be advisable to see the Customs' students
home. They tried to explain to us that they were
capable : they went further, they insinuated things.
We refuted them with scorn and promptitude, and by a
good working majority. Then, crowded into, and on
to, a cart, some inside, some on the shafts, two on
the board behind, and one on the roof (he tumbled off
presently — he explained that the roof was too slippery),
we started for the Kou-lan Hu-t'ung. On arriving there
we went round to the rooms of those who were in bed,

138 WHEBE OHINESES DBIVK

and wished them a Sappy New Year. They did not seem
as pleased as they ought to have been ; I cannot say
why. When our blinking hosts had refreshed us we
went on to the house of a pr&fessor hard by. His
gate-keeper (who for some inscrutable reason seemed to
look on us with suspicion) promptly shouted through
the door that his master had not come back. We were
disinclined to believe this, and successfully stormed the
place, Kandolph climbing over the gate-keeper's house
and opening the door for the rest. The professor was
in bed ; and though I am sure he must have been glad
to see us, did not, as was his plain duty, reprimand his
gate-keeper. Such misplaced leniency ruins servants,
as we pointed out to that dull man. After this we went
home — on foot. For the ungrateful carter had disap-
peared, leaving a message to the effect that he and his
cart did not feel equal to the responsibility of conveying
us all back.

Entertainments were given at the Skating Eink on
other occasions besides Nevr Year's Eve. These usually
took the form of Fancy Dress — I do not know that they
could be strictly called Balls, although the hurdy-gurdy,
if not the piano, usually attended and performed —
" gatherings " would be perhaps appropriate (for it has
some mystic connection with dressmaking, or am I mis-
taken ?). Some of the costumes worn had been brought
out from home, but the majority were made by Chinese
tailors from patterns supplied them. Chinese costumes
were not allowed — on the principle, I suppose, that they
were so much easier to get, and involved little thought
on the part of the wearer. It was hard on the unima-

WINTEB. 139

ginative, perhaps, and gave, many sleepless nights. It
worried a man dreadfully when he had only two days to
make up his mind whether he would look better as Oscar
Wilde or as a Tame Gorilla. At the end of it he felt
more fit to go as the Skeleton at an Egyptian feast.
But these cares are not peculiar to Peking.

One year, fortunately on an off-day (the rink was only
open four times a week or so), the mat shed caught fire
— it was supposed through a lighted cracker falling on
it, for it was the time of the Chinese New Year — and
was burnt to the ground. In the Legation there are
two fire-engines kept, one movable, the other fixed, and
known respectively as engines A and B. To each of
these a senior student was appointed captain, while one
of the rest acted as nozzleman to direct the jet. Hel-
mets and belts, with turnscrews and axes, were kept in
the engine-room. There were plenty of wells in the
Legation and every opportunity for practising. Not
that much was done, but it might have been, and in
former times, I believe, it was. Then the bugleman
would come round at 1 a.m. and wake everybody up.
One enthusiast ran down in such a hurry that he collided
against a tree in the dark, and was found there after
drill and brought to by the aid of the hose, damping his
ardour for some time to come.

In those days they liked to get wet and be photo-
graphed in a mess. We considered such things vanity,
and preferred to keep clean. Nevertheless, when we
heard the news of the fire at the rink we turned out,
and ran the engine round to the scene of the disaster,
our Chinese contingent coming in out of breath — they

140 WHEBU CEINESES DRIVE.

had the pumping to do. To our disgust there was
nothing but a heap of charred bamboos in a half-frozen
(half-thawed would be more accurate) muddy pool. But
presently a tree was found to be burning, and the hose
fixed up and made to play on it. Then it occurred to
someone that the right thing to do was to chop off the
smouldering limb (what was the good of our axes if
they were not to be used ?). So he mounted the tree
and set to work. After getting himself in a horrid mess
he found that the hatchet was too blunt to be of any
service, and that, moreover, the fire was out, and so he
concluded to come down. We refreshed ourselves with
some smoky whisky — part of the salvage — and ran the
engine home again, feeling that we had done our duty :
O'Hara, who is good at that sort of thing, blowing a
march on the nozzle of Engine A.

The Chinese New Year was a holiday season for our-
selves and our teachers. On the morning of this first
and greatest of days to a Chinaman the teachers would
come round in detachments of two or three, dressed in
their brightest skirts — not necessarily their newest, for
these garments of courtesy are often heirlooms — to pay
their compliments. " A happy new year." "A happy
new year to us both." " May you obtain promotion ! "
" May you beget sons ! " " May you pass your days
in riches and honour ! " Then off in a hurry' to the
next man's rooms. Boys, cooks, coolies, mafoos, must
come too, and drop on one knee, or seem to do so, and
say, " Mr. Fang " — as the case may be — " a happy new
year," and disappear almost before you can acknow-
ledge it.

WINTEE. 141

The teachers would bring some little present as a
New Year's cadeau, a little tea or some sweetmeats.
Sung used often to give me sweetmeats (Mrs. Sung made
them, I believe) — biscuits, and jujube jam. The bis-
cuits I gave to Gyp ; the jam I privily buried, until one
day Fawcett surprised me, and marvelled. He said
that this " red fruit preserve " — he objected to the word
" jam " — was a thing to be desired. After that I used
to send it, whenever it came, up to his rooms instead.

The New Year is the time for theatricals in the Chi-
nese city. The theatres themselves are not much to see,
but occasionally foreigners are represented on the stage,
and the lion turns painter, and gives his version of
events and things. The foreigner always comes on in a
battle scene, and always comes off badly. Your China-
man would take Apollo for a bogey, Hyperion for a
satyr ; and the Pekin gamin has no more cutting gibe
for his fellow mudlark than to point to some advancing
European and say, " Here 's your brother coming ! "
If we think flattened noses, eyes like a cat's at mid-
day, blubber lips, high cheekbones, and a skin like
mouldy parchment hideous and ogre-like, we do but
feebly echo their opinion of our more prominent fea-
tures. So the stage Englishman is the ugliest actor
procurable.

His dress, as a rule, is as great a libel as his face.
But one day a foreigner, sitting in a Chinese theatre,
saw among the motley crew in red cotton coats and
clumsy native boots that were doing duty as defeated
Englishmen, an actor rigged out in evening dress.
Swallow-tail, white tie, shirt — nothing was wanting.

142 WHERE GEINE8ES DBIVE.

He was the leader of the EngHsh troops, and carried a
broomstail by way of musket. And when the inevitable
rout took place, he was carefully signalled out for the
buffets and abuse of the victorious Chinese.

The foreigner went home pensive : the dress suit was
undeniable. And its treatment was not calculated to
improve it. He mentioned the circumstance to his
friends, and they too reflected, long and earnestly.
They ascertained that a similar performance was to take
place that day week, and resolved on certain measures.
They were successful. On the night of the play Dr.
Josephs discovered that his dress suit was absent from
his wardrobe. The boy was sent for, and at last con-
fessed that, as on several previous occasions, it had been
hired out to the theatrical company at fifty cents the
evening. He pleaded in extenuation that he did not
think his master would miss it.

For Josephs is one of the most absent-minded of
men. He is a very learned Doctor of Divinity, with a
mind above the conventionalities of common life. Mrs.
Josephs looks after those for him. And so, when they
were dining at the Bertrams' one evening the winter
before last, she carefully laid out his dress clothes in his
room, and saw that the studs were fastened in his shirt.
The Doctor was engrossed in his great work on the
Comparative Philology of the Chinese and Aztec, and
only began to dress at the last moment. He slipped
on an overcoat and joined the impatient Mrs. Josephs
in her cart. On their arrival at the Bertrams' they
found everyone there before them. The Doctor, anxious
to regain his wife's good graces by showing that her

WINTEB. 143

lectures on loitering were not lost on him, hurried at
once into the drawing-room. He was making his way
to the hostess when, " Allow me, Dr. Josephs, to assist
you off with your overcoat." As Bertram took the
garment, there was a horrified scream from Mrs.
Josephs. The Doctor stood revealed in a red flannel
shirt and blue cotton neck-cloth, framed in the incon-
gruous swallow-tail.

Nothing pleased our cook so much as the laying out
of a table for a large mess dinner. He used to make
the most extraordinary centre-pieces, with a substratum
of apricot kernels formed into a solid mass by pouring
boiling sugar over them. When he had moulded this
into the shape of a vase, he filled it with Siberian crabs,
dates, quarters of oranges, sugared walnuts, grapes, and
other things, and put some more boilingsugar over that,
filling in the interstices with artificial flowers. Or he
would get a gourd of some kind, hollow it,^ and carve it
most elaborately. Inside was placed a lighted candle,
and the effect, if quaint, was pretty. Then he would
make us cakes, alternate layers of sponge-cake and jam,
also covered with artificial flowers. These flowers were
very well made, and often exceedingly tasteful.

It was formerly, I believe, a custom at the Mess to
have a zakouska before dinner, olives, caviare, sliced
salmon, and like appetite-provoking dishes ; but whether
because this was found to be really a work of superero-
gation, or for some other weighty reason, the good old
custom has been abolished, and only survives in Peking
in places where some Russian has fortunately taken up

144 WHERE GEINESES DRIVE.

his abode. After a Mess dinner we adjourned to the
" drawing-room," in the daytime known as the library,
which had been decorated for the occasion with pictures,
curios, and scrolls, and made comfortable with arm-
chairs and rugs from our rooms. Sometimes we had a
piano up there ; but most of the songs were sung across
the walnuts and the wine, unaccompanied. The guests
then distributed themselves, some in the billiard-room,
some in the bowling alley (if it was a bowling night),
while some stayed in the library to play whist or other-
wise amuse themselves.

Usually at one or two houses there were "whist
evenings " once a week, where anyone who came could,
be sure of a rubber. Whist accounts were settled by a
chit, or simply by entry in the " whist-book." There
was a general clearance of these at the end of winter.
A " chit," I should perhaps explain, is used in many
senses out here : for an I U, as well as for a memo —
or generally, for any written message. In sending a
chit, a " chit-book " almost invariably accompanies it.
The usual form of this is a leather-covered memorandum
book fitting into a leather case, and the object is partly
to protect the note from contact with the coolie's hand,
but chiefly that the signature of the receiver in the book
may prove delivery — a very necessary precaution some-
times, as parcels and money frequently accompany the
chit.

Some men used to take great pride in their chit-books :
kept them in text-hand, and carefully rubbed or scratched
out any frivolous remarks their correspondents might
have unduly inserted. Others were as anxious to get

WINTER. 145

theirs filled as a young lady her album or Shakespeare
Birthday Book. One of these men was bemoaning to
Herington the slowness with which his pages filled, when
Herington said he would bring his. He was some little
time finding it, but when he did appear he showed to his
admiring friend columns full of the notables of Peking.
Each was initialed in red or blue or black pencil, and
followed by some remark ; but the other man had not
time to read these, as Herington said there was an im-
portant engagement he had just remembered, and left
with the book. A day or two after the other received a
chit from Herington, and, turning over the leaves of the
chit-book, paused to look at the remarks made there by
Herington's numerous and distinguished correspondents.
Most of them were illegible, and seemed to resemble
Tamil in the form of the letters ; but presently against
the name of one of the senior ministers he found the
legend K.Y.H.O. He says it was this that first shook
his faith in Herington's chit-book. He felt that the
letters must stand for ' Keep Your Hair On,' but he
had not faith enough to believe that this was the
reply usually sent by Plenipos. to communications
addressed to them. He is convinced, though, that
Herington's method of filling a chit-book is more
expeditious than his own, but there seem to be one
or two features in it to which more prejudiced people
might take exception, and he accordingly hesitates to
adopt it.

Once every winter, generally about the time of the
Chinese New Year, the little theatre attached to the
reading-room was thrown open for use. Sometimes a

10

146 WHERE CHINESE8 DRIVE.

pantomime was performed, more frequently a short play,
and once a Christy Minstrel concert. In any case, there
were long and mysterious rehearsals, during which the
papers and magazines of the reading-room were trans-
ferred to the library, and the doors communicating with
the billiard-room kept strictly closed. The theatre did
not boast many properties, and each actor had to supply
his own dress. Neither was a change of scene easy,
and so plays that did not require this were preferred.
When Frere was in Peking he and Mrs. Bertram agreed
to paint a new drop-scene. But Frere thought it a
foolish waste of time to get up before twelve, and
preferred to do his part in the small hours of the
night, when he could be undisturbed. Mrs. Bertram
had prejudices in favour of daylight, and so they
occupied the stage much as Box and Cox their
lodgings, and never met. Suggested alterations were
written on chits and pinned to the canvas to await
approval.

It was better so, perhaps, than to trust to native
talent. At one of the ports a Chinese artist was called
in to make a large copy of an old-fashioned valentine,
to serve as a stage curtain. There was a church in the
background, and a winding-path led between tombstones
to the porch. On the path a couple were walking arm-
in-arm, in chimney-pot and coal-scuttle bonnet. The
native copied every detail with commendable fidelity ;
then paused to survey his work. It struck him with a
sense of incompleteness that saddened him. Presently
he became inspired, and, seizing his brushes, painted,
behind the largest tombstone, and close to the devoted

WINTER. 147

pair, a bright red and very heraldic Chinese lion, pre-
pared to devour them. It seemed to him to add soul
and motif to the picture.

The audience at our theatre were of many nation-
alities. Frenchmen, Germans, Hollanders, Russians,
Japanese. They did not always understand a far-fetched
pun, but they looked as if they did, and applauded the
efforts of the pun-maker — ^which came to much the
same thing, perhaps. To the dress rehearsal the
children came with their amahs. The children were'
enthusiastic, but beyond a faint glow of satisfac-
tion, the amahs betrayed little emotion. For one
thing, the Chinese can hardly understand any but
the lowest classes condescending to act on a stage,
and the amahs are possibly doubtful how far they
ought to encourage that sort of thing by appearing
pleased.

On the night of the play the billiard-room does duty
as a cloak-room. Entrance is obtained by means of
steps leading up to and down from one of the windows ;
for there is no space to spare in the reading-room, now
perverted into an auditorium.

The plays I need say nothing about : they were of the
usual drawing-room drama type, and hardly deserved to
be as well rendered as for the most part they were. The
Christy Minstrel concert was got up by some ten or
twelve of the community, and came off exceedingly well
— as was to be expected, seeing that two Charges
d' Affaires (actual or potential) took part in it. The
preparations for the great event were concealed with the
usual care from the uninitiated, but it leaked out some-

10 *

148 WHERE OHINESES DBTVE.

how that each performer was to be supplied with a motto,
and have it printed on the programme. As we were
always ready to do a kind action, we adjourned to the
library and possessed ourselves of a Shakespeare, a
Dryden, a Pope, and two volumes of " Elegant Extracts."
Then we prepared a list of mottoes that seemed to us
quite too perfect; but somehow, when it came to be
submitted to the performers, everybody thought his
neighbour's singularly appropriate, but for the hfe of
him could not see the fan of his own. Indeed, they
went so far as to make reflections on the men who had
chosen them. They said, for instance, that they did
not mind giving their first violin — Paley — such a thing
as —

Orpheus played so well he moTed old Nick,
But thou mov'st nothing but thy fiddle-stick, —

for that merely showed want of appreciation on our
part of his many excellencies ; but they thought their
tenor likely to be discouraged by "An it had been a
dog that had howled thus," and the rest of it ; while
the temper of their juniorest member would hardly
be improved if he saw himself labelled "A peevish
school-boy." Grordon objected to his : " Now will
he lie ten nights awake, carving the fashion of
a new doublet"; but he was privately pleased,
for he was conscious of a nice taste in dress. We
were disgusted at their ingratitude, and thought of
appealing to the public with our Eejected Mottoes,
but forbore.

Some of them, it is true, were more amenable. Ber-
tram, the sociable but unmelodious, received his motto.

WINTER. 149

with the smile of cheerful approval he sheds on most
things :

Who ne'er bad wit nor will for music yet,
But pleased to be reputed of a set.

And Sileby, a kindred soul, accepted his with wonted
calmness :

Wbat fluent nonsense trickles from bis tongue,
How sweet tbe Terses neitber said nor sung !

Collectively, too, they were not so sensitive, and allowed
their programme to be headed with " Less Black than
We 're Painted " [Herington wanted to spell the last
word with a y, out of compliment to the novelist, but we
suppressed him], and —

Tbey carefully observed dramatic rules.

They all looked natural and tbey all looked .

The programme was imposing. It announced that
" The Consolidated Cosmopolitan Combination Min-
strels " would " appear for the first (and positively the
last) time in the Legation Theatre." " This Troupe,"
it stated, " was under the Patronage and Special
Protection of Great Britain, the Netherlands, Rus-
sia, Germany, and the United States, and its mem-
bers had been selected with care and sent to
China at great expense by their respective Govern-
ments."

Then came the mottoes, the unrejected ones. Then
an outline of the performance in three parts. Parts I.
and III. were taken up by the usual nigger songs, inter-
spersed in the performing by a few jokes and a pun or

150 WHERE GHINESE8 DRIVE.

two on the names of the visitors, carefully extemporised.
Part II, was a " Variety Entertainment — Musical,
Acrobatic, Magical, and Terpsichorean, as exhibited
before all the Crowned Heads of Europe, Asia,
Africa, and America " (the Sandwich Islands were as
yet unvisited). For particulars we were referred to
handbills — not, Gordon explained, because there were
any, but because people always liked a reference. We
were further informed that " Admission was Feee to
children under 75 years of age," and (this in the most
extensive type admissible) that Peabs' Soap was the
Best !

There were some trifling matters of detail that went
a little wrong in the Second Part. The Professor of
Strength and Legerdemain had caused two weights of
50 and 500 lbs. respectively to be brought in by his
panting assistants, and placed near the front of the
stage. He was going to show his strength by lifting
them unaided, but meanwhile was busy about something
else. While his back was turned the small boy who did
duty as My Son thought his cile was come, and picked
up the weights and was carrying them off, when the
horrified Professor caught sight of him and rushed in
pursuit. Then he solemnly went through the business
with the weights. After which he explained, apologeti-
cally, " My sonn, he iss von goot lad, but he iss so
yong, he d(5ss not know."

Nevertheless, he had a mishap with his senior assis-
tant — Gordon. The Professor took down a bamboo pole
from the wall, and carefully balanced it on his nose.
Then Gordon climbed up the Professor on to the pole.

WINTER. 161

But just as he got there the pole slipped. Instead of
falling, however, it remained suspended — casting doubts
on the strength of the Professor's nose, that should have
been uncalled for. I have caught him napping once or
twice.

You will smile at our finding amusement in tricks so
old. Spend a winter, or, better still, two, in Peking,
and you will laugh at anything — and the more heartily
if it is an old friend.

Out of doors there were occasional skating parties
before the dust had spoilt the new ice. Herington,
Lawson, and Eandolph, skated down the canal to
T'ungchow one day — a feat worthy, they said, of record.
They provisioned themselves against accidents with a
bottle of brandy. But Eandolph and Herington com-
plained when they came back that it was not much good
to them. For Lawson fell into a hole soon after they
started, and when they got him out they gave him the
brandy to imbibe medicinally. Then he said that he
must skate fast to restore his circulation, and he went
ahead at a pace quite beyond them. When they caught
him up at last, he was sitting on the bank shying at the
empty brandy-bottle with chunks of ice. And Eandolph
says he wanted to know if there was not any more
brandy.

A football match on the An-ting plain, north of
the city, was talked about, but nothing came of it.
A ball and goal-posts could be had or extemporised :
the difficulty was to find the players. Someone
suggested Coolies v. Mafoos, but somehow this did
not seem likely to give us all the exercise we wanted.

162 WB.BBE CEINE8ES DRIVE.

and the scheme fell through. Inside the Legation
there was, besides the bowling-alley, the fives court,
and this was used off and on right into the summer.
Indeed, we have played in it with the thermometer at
95° — when it more nearly resembled the hot-air room in
a Turkish Bath than a place of exercise.

Balls and concerts were given at some of the Lega-
tions and at the Inspectorate-General of Customs.
Dinners everywhere. But the pleasantest of all, per-
haps, were the carpet dances (with the carpet up) at
two or three houses. We shared the misfortune of
most European communities in the East : an undue
preponderance of the male. Dancing-men were at a
discount. As a lady once said of a similar struggle at
home (similar, mutatis mutandis), " the competition was
terrible." Under such unnatural conditions, it was not
surprising that programmes were usually filled up in
ink. The modus operandi in filling the programme
appears truly formidable to a fresh and bashful student.
He is told that he must first call on his lady acquaint-
ances and use all his powers of persuasion to secure a
partner for Mrs. X.'s dance that day fortnight. If he is
fortunate enough to do this, he must then call on Mrs.
X., and use all his powers of persuasion to get her to
give a dance that day fortnight. And a certain, not
inconsiderable, amount of diplomacy is sometimes
required.

But our hostesses were kind-hearted and yielded to
what we considered to be the logic of circumstances.
If there were three times as many dancing men in
Peking as ladies wishful to dance, the only way to satis-

WINTEit. 153

factorily arrange things was to give three times as many
dances. And so the dances were given. But grew
fewer each week as winter drew to a close, and the
opening of the river allowed those whose pleasure or
duty it was, to go south.

154 WHERE CHINE8ES BMIVE.

V. Spring and Autumn.

The opening of the river, while it is the signal of
departure for some of us, brings back to Peking the
residents who may have been wintering at Shanghai,
and at the same time sends north not a few of those
who are engaged on the "grand tour" of to-day,
and who have been styled, and in most cases good-
humouredly accepted the title of "globe-trotters."
The average globe-trotter is a very good fellow to
meet, with, as is to be expected now that he is
half-way round the world, plenty of reminiscences;
who, as a snowball pebbles, has picked up a store of
topical stories, and so serves the purpose of the pedlar
at home, in giving one district a neighbourly interest
in another.

If he has a weakness, it is perhaps for bringing out
on all occasions, possible and impossible, such smatter-
ing of the language of the place as he has been able
to acquire in a week or two. He is ingenuous, and
admits this pleasantly enough: "We . . . think the
opportunity a good one to take soundings in Chinese, so
ask him in Mandarin speech, with a strong English
accent, the name of the next village. He thinks for a

SPBING AND AUTUMN. 165

great number of seconds with his wrinkled old face, and
with eyes and mouth staring at us fixedly, and at last,
with a feeble oscillation of that venerable cranium,
shouts out, loud enough to be heard a mile off, ' Pu-
toong-wha.' He did not understand our language,
though we spoke in his own." (Fleming, Travels on Horse-
bach in Manchu Tartary, p. 24). Possibly not, as later
on we read : " ' Had we any more men, and how many ? '
he finally queried. . . . Now the similarity in sound
between the word yin (sic) man, and tien (sic) days, per-
plexed M." (the Chinese speaker) "who luckily thought
it was days he meant, and answered, twelve — as this
was the time we had been on the road," ib. p. 445.
(' How many men ? ' would probably be cM-ho jen^ ;
' how many days ? ' cM t'ien^ — but this by the way.)

A tdo-t'ai is a high Chinese official whose rank cor-
responds with that of a Consul. And so it did sound
a little odd when a globe-trotter, who was going into the
city to buy curios, looked doubtfully at his dollars, and
observed, " I suppose I had better get them changed
for tao-t'ais." His idea was to lay in a stock of tiao
notes.

But there was one man who had been resident in
Peking some months, and had, he told us, the task of
translating the correspondence between his Legation and
the Tsung-li Yamen, who continued to call the Ch'ien
Men, the An-ting Men, and the Ha-ta Men, by the
respective names of the " China Men," the " Hunting
Men," and the " Gate Men." It was only after long
argument that he could be persuaded that as men meant
"gate," it was at least peculiar to style the south-east

156 WHERE GEINESE8 BBIVE.

entrance to the Tartar City, the " Gate-gate." "We
admitted, nay admired, the ingenuity of the " China
Men" and the "Hunting Men," but, on the whole,
authorities seemed to be in favour of rendering the
Chinese characters by some such terms as the " Front
Gate," and the " Gate Peacefully Established," or, at
any rate, of reading them as the Ch'ien, and the An-
ting, Men, respectively.

It is a praiseworthy desire on the part of a visitor to
wish to take away with him some memento of the
place at which he has been staying. And so Bertram
was not surprised when a globe-trotter once expressed
his regret that he had no time to go to the Great Wall,
although he had made a sort of half promise to his
people that he would bring them a brick from it. But
Bertram was a kind-hearted man, and grieved that his
visitor's family should be disappointed, and so rang
the bell and told the boy to fetch the Sergeant of the
Escort. The boy said he was busy with the contractor,
superintending the new buildings in the stable-yard.
" Never mind," said Bertram, " tell him to come."
When the Sergeant appeared, Bertram told him to
bring one of the bricks from the wall. The Sergeant
gave a sympathetic smile and left. Then Bertram ex-
plained to the globe-trotter that cases like his were not
uncommon, and in order to meet them they had im-
ported a cart-load of bricks from the Wall, which the
Sergeant had under careful keeping. So that globe-
trotter went away happy. But the Sergeant said he
had great difficulty in settling with the contractor about
the value of those bricks.

SPRING AND AUTUMN. 157

Perhaps the place which has the greatest attractions
for an enterprising visitor (because, may be, it is one
of the most difficult to enter) is the Temple of Hea-
ven. A paved road runs south from the Ch'ien Men,
through the middle of the Chinese City, to the Yung-
ting Men, in the centre of the south wall. On the
left hand, as you approach the Yung-ting Gate, is a
broad stretch of open ground, about half a mile long,
and some 200 yards broad. Beyond this, to the east,
lies the enclosure of the Temple of Heaven. Gordon
had arranged with a friend of his, who was spending a
few weeks in Peking, to try to get into the place, and
asked me to go with them. We left the Legation a
little after 5 in the morning, and calling on the way for
Mr. Rearsby, rode through the Ch'ien Men into the
Outer City. When we got to the bare tract in front of
the Temple, we whipped up our ponies and made for a
point Gordon told us of in the south-west of the enclo-
sure, where sand and rubbish had accumulated so much,
that it was possible to ride right over the wall into the
park. We did not do this, however, but dismounting
quickly, and giving our ponies to Gordon's mafoo, who
had accompanied us, were jumping down into the park,
when we were stopped by some dirty half-naked scoun-
drels, who would have us believe that they belonged to
the small guard-house at the foot of the mound. It is
not impossible — Chinese guards are always filthy and
nearly always in rags ; but it is much more probable
that they were simply local bullies who wanted a squeeze.
A V7eek or so before, a globe-trotter who did not know
what to do with himself, strolled down to this very place

158 WHERE GHINE8E8 DRIVE.

and tried to walk in, when he was stopped, hustled
about, deprived of his stick and loose cash, and finally
induced to beat a strategic though somewhat hasty
retreat.

Their success on that occasion had probably made
the fellows more insolent, for when we, disregarding
them, entered the park, they followed and began to
threaten us. Gordon is not the sort of man to stand
any nonsense of that kind, so caught hold of the fore-
most by his pig-tail, and tripping him up, held him
down till he grew calmer. Meanwhile, Mr. Bearsby
had taken another persuasively by the arm and escorted
him quietly to the gap we had entered by. Then he
gently but firmly raised him with knee and foot to the
top of the wall, and came away.

After this we went on slowly, still accompanied by the
bolder of the ragamuflfins, who would stoop every now
and then to pick up a stone, tapping their foreheads
with their fists, by way of challenging us to fight. Or
they would put themselves in our way, an attention Mr.
Rearsby regarded as a little too pressing, and removed
them accordingly — as you may see a porter remove a
bale of goods labelled " with care." Then they con-
descended to argue the point. One old rascal asked
Gordon " who had given us permission to enter ? "
Gordon, a little inconsequently, said that we were
officials. " Pretty officials," yelled back the man, dis-
appointed of his expected squeeze, " I '11 be bound you
appointed yourselves." His other observations, which
were numerous, hardly bear translation.

By this time we had evidently got beyond the squeez-

SPEING AND AUTUMN. 159

ing preserve or beat of these fellows, for, with a few more
remarks of a personal and uncomplimentary character,
they turned sadly away. We could now see more of
the park or outer enclosure. Here were stretches of
grass (once used as a cricket ground by the students
of some years back), skirted by avenues of trees, and
beyond them the curved wall of the middle park, topped
with blue tiles. Walking along under this, we passed
by the West Gate, where the guards standing about
answered civilly to our " How do you do ? " It was no
use attempting to enter here, all the same, nor did we
try, but went on till we came to the North Gate,
which was locked, but without guards. Close to this
the tiles have been broken on the top of the wall, and
the joists that supported them stand out on either side
like the parallel bars of a gymnasium, but some ten
feet from the ground. The only attempt at repairing
the' breach was a bundle of brambles thrown carelessly
on the wall, and kept in their place by an earthenware
ornament that had fallen from the gate.

Mr. Rearsby was the first to mount, and his appear-
ance on the top was greeted by a shout of surprise from
inside. While he was haranguing the natives — in
English — Gordon gave me a leg up and I joined him,
minus my cap and plus a cheekfull of scratches from
the brambles. Gordon was a little too enthusiastic in
helping a fellow sometimes. Then began a parley with
the natives. "It 's very dangerous up there," — ^politic
opening from the enemy. " Why not open the gate,
then ? " — on the assumption that they wanted us to
come down inside, " What will you give ? " But by

160 WHERE QHINESES BBIVE.

this time Gordon had swarmed up a tree with an oppor-
tune bough overhanging the wall. Then we prepared
to descend, and, after dislodging a tile, found an easy
drop from one of the rafters. The Chinese were a little
disappointed, but brightened up after a successful nego-
tiation for recovering the cap. Then we were politic,
and, as they showed no intention of leaving us, sug-
gested that they should go with us, and act as guides.
They agreed to this, but objected when we lit cigarettes,
as, they said, the grass was dry and might catch fire.
We distributed a few cigarettes judiciously, and smoked
on in peace.

The middle enclosure is planted with trees like the
outer, and after passing through a small wood we arrived
at the western gate of the inner court. This is ap-
proached by a flight of stone steps, and is in the usual
form of Chinese gateways, a large door in the centre,
flanked by two smaller ones. On each side of the plat-
form, in front of the gate, is a deep stone fosse, sur-
rounding the courtyard. But the platform is about two
feet wider than the gateway, leaving room to approach
the wall, here only five feet high. It was a nasty place
to get over, nevertheless, for a stumble on the slippery
tiles would probably mean a broken leg, or worse, at the
bottom of the fosse. It just suited Gordon, though,
who insisted on climbing over and letting us in^ The
Chinese were much excited, " He '11 fall, and there '11
be trouble. Tell him to stop : they 've gone for the
key." But Gordon was already over and opening the
door. The key was inside.

As we passed through, Gordon announced that we

SPBING AND AUTUMN. 161

were now on the right side — the inside— of all
the gates, and that meant success : for the guards,
though not eager to let us in, would be only too glad to
let us out. Inside this courtyard is the mosque-like
building whose blue tiles and gilt apex are seen shining
in the sun from a great distance. It is approached by
flights of marble steps from the four points of the com-
pass, but is a little disappointing when looked at closely.
It was looked, but through the latticed panels we saw
that it contained little besides an incense altar and its
accompaniments. From the terrace looking south we
could see the Altar of Heaven and its approaches. For
although, from the fact of its being the most conspicuous
object in the enclosure, this building is often pointed
out from outside as the " Altar of Heaven," it is in
reality only the shrine at which the Emperor returns
thanks for a good harvest. In the building to the
north of it are kept the Tablets of the Dynasty.

Descending the terrace we came to the southern gate
of the courtyard. It was closed by a heavy wooden bar,
but the Chinese removed that with a little persuasion, and
we found ourselves on a long stone causeway, with trees
on each side. At the end of this was another gate, and
after passing that and a building beyond it, we were at
the foot of the staircase leading up to the marble ter-
races, on the last of which stands the altar. These
terraces are circular, concentric ; of white marble, whose
polish time has dimmed ; surrounded by a balustrade.
The altar is the centre one of five blocks of marble, but
slightly sculptured, some three feet high, and a foot in
diameter. Below the terrace, to the south-east, stands

11

162 WHERE CHINE8E8 DRIVE.

the Altar of Burnt-offering, square, covered with green
tiles, with steps on three sides leading to the top, and
on the north the mouth of the oven. The floor inside
was covered with pieces of charred bone, one of which I
took away as a trophy. Bertram, by-the-bye, says that
he has lots : but I have an idea that his cook supplies
him.

We left the Court of the Altar by a small doorway
opening into the middle enclosure, having seen every-
thing we wished to see. Here we distributed some tiao
notes and ten-cent pieces to our " guides," tossing the
silver into the air for them to scramble for, and came
away. Passing by the Palace of Abstinence (where the
Emperor is supposed to prepare himself by fasting for
offering the yearly sacrifice, and which, as it was sur-
rounded by a moat, and not easily stormable, we decided
contained nothing of interest) we came to the west gate
of the middle enclosure. All the doors were fastened,
even a small wicket we had seen open at a distance. It
was evident that the guards meant to make something
out of us here. We took it philosophically at first, ex-
perience having taught us that there was little fear of
our not being let out. But we felt that it was nearly
breakfast time, and were not inclined to be late : so,
seeing a heap of hay, we declared we would set fire to
that if the gate was not opened. The ov^^ner protested
so comically against the "impropriety" of doing this
that we desisted, and began to try to remove the bar.
Only one Chinaman came to our assistance, and laboured
with great zeal to stir it in its socket, but in vain. Pre-
sently it occurred to Gordon that perhaps he was an

SPBING AND AUTUMN. 163

interested party, or ignorant, anyhow, and so at his sug-
gestion we hammered, and with complete success, in the
opposite direction. That Chinaman was a man of ideas,
certainly, but he lost his cumshaw.

We had no further difficulty : the next — the outer —
gate was open, and was left open. Passing through this
we signalled the mafoo, who was waiting for us by the
gap ; and when he brought our ponies up we mounted
and rode home.

The next day Gordon and Mr. Rearsby escorted some
ladies into the Lamasery, another of the Peking lions,
but in the north of the city. The gate-keeper, a burly
baldpate, swore that there was a mandarin visiting the
place and he could not let them in. When they passed
by him he shouted to someone to close the inner gate,
but Gordon, with great promptitude, ran forward and
secured the entrance for his party. Within, a service
was going on ; and while they were looking at this,
Gordon saw baldpate with a whip raised to strike one
of the ladies. He ran at him and flung him down, and
taught him manners, as William of Wykeham did in his
day, by a thorough and satisfactory drubbing. After
which they went over the whole place, where a mandarin
was not. The priests, who, to do them justice, appeared
extremely vexed at their gate-keeper's conduct, showed
them every attention. Baldpate, by-the-bye, had the
exceeding coolness to ask for a cumshaw as they left.

I do not know whether it was this same ruffian who
attacked a foreigner a few years before. It was soon
after Dr. Best's arrival in China, and, I believe, before
he had learnt to speak Pekingese. He rode over to the

11 *

164 WHERE GHINESE8 BBIYE.

Lamasery, and, after seeing everything, mounted and
was leaving, when the gate-keeper rushed up behind
and struck him oflf his pony with a pole. After that he
was carried home senseless : but what became of the
gate-keeper I do not know — as I say, it may have been
this very man.

The forcible entry into places to which a most exagge-
rated idea of sanctity has been attached — by foreigners
(see Gumpach, Butlinghame's Mission, p. 219, where the
cricket playing of the students in the grounds of the
Temple of Heaven some fourteen years ago is com-
mented on with great acrimony) may strike a Western
hearer as, to put it mildly, somewhat improper. I do
not mean to accuse myself, and so do not put this forward
as an excuse, but merely as a statement. To begin with,
I doubt if any of the lower classes of Chinamen have any
idea of what we call loyalty, or have any feeling of
reverence whatever. Therefore the Chinese guard at
an Imperial tomb or place of worship does not, as a
Moslem would, think it desecrated by the visit of a
foreigner ; and if he is liable to be punished for admit-
ting that foreigner, is willing to take the risk on being
paid proportionately. Every man has his price in China
as surely as in England in Walpole's days. But what
is far more to the point is the fact that at most of these
places the lowest cooHe, the ragged dirty beggar, is
admitted, while the door is rudely slammed in the face
of a European.

Some years ago, when one of our present Consuls
was a student, the right of way through the Imperial
City was closed to foreigners. EUerby pondered over

8PBTNG AND AUTUMN. 165

the injustice of this as he saw a crowd of Chinese-
ragamuffins passing through the gate ; so went back
to his rooms and fetched a copy of the Tzu erh Chi and
a camp-stool. On presenting himself at the gate, it
was, as he expected, immediately shut. Thereupon he
seated himself close to the entrance, and proceeded to
study intently. Meanwhile a crowd of passengers col-
lected, anxious to pass. The gate-keeper hesitated
long whether he should open the gate or not, but finally
the impatience of the crowd outside decided him.
EUerby entered first, with his book and camp-stool,
beaming on the gate-keeper through his glasses in mild
approval.

South of the Chinese City is an immense park known
as the Nan Hai-tzu, and " no admission except on busi-
ness " is certainly not the rule — as far as Chinamen are
concerned. But a foreigner can only get in by strata-
gem, and it is considered all but impossible to enter
through the north or main entrance. The side gates
are less carefully guarded, and so Gordon and two other
students who wished to get into the park were riding
past the north gate. But when they were only 100
yards or so ofi" it they noticed that it was still open, and,
wheeling round, made a rush for it. Lawson, who is a
strong fellow with a quick eye, caught one leaf of the
door as it was being closed and flung it back with one
hand, while he sent a gate-keeper spinning with the
other. He and Gordon got through, but Eandolph's
pony swerved, and before he could recover he found
himself shut out. There is a Tartar encampment inside
the park, and the soldiers rode up in pursuit of Lawson

166 WHEBB GHINESES DRIVE.

and G-ordon, but, not being so well mounted, bad a long
cbase. When they had seen everything Gordon and
Lawson allowed themselves to be overtaken and cere-
moniously shown out.

An eclipse of the sun was announced to take place
one afternoon, and a memorial from the Imperial Board
of Astronomers appeared in the Gazette four days before,
the original of which had been accompanied by a dia-
gram. And so the Chinese were all on the alert. I
could not quite make out what my teacher, Hsii, thought
about it : he understood perfectly the causes of the
phenomenon, but he would often drop the proper term
for an eclipse and talk about the " dog of the heavens "
(t'ien koiii) — for the Chinese say, by-the-bye, that it is
a dog, and not a dragon, that on these occasions devours
the sun.

We had read so much about it, that we got quite ex-
cited as the time approached. Gordon had set his watch
by that of the Professor of Astronomy, and as soon as
the eclipse was due, called out, "Time's up," and pro-
ceeded to frantically bang our dinner-gong. When he
got tired of that he came out to see if it had produced
any effect ; which it apparently had not.

When the shadow became plainer I strolled out into
the street. Near the Mongol Market service was going
on in a small joss-house, but the people about did not
seem very much disturbed' — which was disappointing and
quite contrary to what the illustrated books on China
had led me to expect. Most of them were going in the
direction of the Board of Ceremonies, and so I thought

SPRING AND AUTUMN. 167

I might as well go too. A side gate stood open, and a
cake-seller was coming out. I walked in, the gate-
keeper saying nothing. In the first court were more
cake-sellers, and a lot of carts. The inner court is
traversed by the usual broad stone causeway, and on
this, in front of the entrance, is a stone screen. Behind
and on one side of the screen were grouped men in em-
broidered red jackets, very dirty — both jackets and men.
One of these thumped incessantly at a gong suspended
from the screen : the rest had drums ready in case of a
sudden emergency. In the background was a long low
pavilion, and on the terrace in front of this stood officials
of various grades, in full uniform. Between them and
the screen, and on the causeway, was erected an incense
table, and before this a mat was spread. The pavilion
fronts due west, and it was now nearly five o'clock in
the afternoon : so that all the officials faced the sun.
From time to time one of their number came forward,
and, taking his place on the mat, solemnly kotowed
in the direction of the eclipse. An orderly crowd of
Chinese, chiefly of the lower classes, stood on each side
of the causeway.

When I had been there a short time a small official
came up to me and politely requested me to withdraw,
as "this was not a place for foreigners " — and on the
whole I think he was right. I wondered, though, as I
came away, if the presence of a foreigner was embar-
rassing as reminding them of the absurdity of this
mummery, kept up, as I believe, in the face of fuller
knowledge and common sense, simply to delude the
people, and to encourage ignorance and superstition.

168 WHERE GHINE8ES VBIVE.

So, in a recent Gazette, a young woman is reported to
have cut out a portion of her liver to make broth for- a
dying parent, her own wound miraculously healing in-
stantly, while her mother was at. once restored to health.
And the Emperor sanctions the Viceroy's request for the
erection of a tablet to commemorate this. These men,
members of the Tsung-li Ya-men, some of them, can
hardly believe such things ; yet they can publish a dia-
gram of an eclipse some days before it occurs, and then,
with genuflexions and much beating of gongs, try to
save the sun from the dog that is devouring it. . . .
But in all probability the request to withdraw was
prompted by the practice which I spoke of just now as
so humiliating to Europeans — the opening of doors to
the meanest coolie that are ostentatiously shut in the
face of a foreigner.

There are several other " places of interest " in Peking
which the visitor is expected to go to. I do not know
how it is — perhaps it is an evil habit of procrastination
I have contracted somewhere, but more probably that
truest happiness which they say lies in anticipation (this
last, I know, is why my friends' letters are left un-
answered so long) ; but, for some reason or other, I do
not appear to have visited so many of these places as I
clearly ought to have done. This is a candid admission,
and give me credit for it. A less ingenuous man might
have purchased Kieruff's Ouide to Peking, and, by
working in a personal element, have deceived confiding
friends, and led them to beheve that he had been all
about the city. I do not claim to have done more than
an average amount of sight-seeing, such as the ordinary

8PBING AND AUTUMN. 169

resident goes through as a matter of duty. It is only
your visitor that sees everything.

But, at any rate, I do not think I was as indifferent to
my surroundings as the studious second-year's man who
was asked by a casual visitor the whereabouts of the
Hanlin College. He said he really did not know : the
Tzu erh Chi said nothing about it, and he had not
time to go into out-of-the-way parts of the city exploring.
It would not pay : for the examiners were hardly likely
to ask such a question as that. But he did feel a little
distressed when the visitor called two days afterwards to
say he had found the Hanlin College all right : it was
next door to the Students' Quarters.

Though, perhaps, scarcely to be reckoned as a Chinese
institution, yet certainly in every sense a place of in-
terest in Peking is the Eoman Catholic Cathedral in
the Imperial City, the Pei-t'ang, or " Northern Hall."
This was rebuilt in 1861 under French auspices, the
original building having been destroyed after the retire-
ment of the Jesuits. We attended afternoon service
there one Easter Sunday. The nave and aisles were
full of Chinese, women as well as men, the men wearing
their caps, while the heads of the women were un-
covered. We were accommodated with chairs near the
chancel, but the space behind us was crammed with
natives. Here the original purpose for which incense
may have been introduced was, as it seemed to me, ex-
emplified ; for had it not been for the censers no Euro-
pean could have remained near that crowd of malodorous
Chinamen a minute — and probably the assemblies in

170 WEBBE CEINESES DBIVK

the temples of Ammon struck the cleanly Egyptian priests
in much the same way. As it was, the Chinese boys were
troublesome. One little wretch kneeling between two
prie-dieus kept expectorating steadily and with a certain
unction and emphasis that attracted remark. Most of
the natives present were doing the same ; but this was
in our midst, as it were. And so Bertram, with all the
solemnity of a verger, tapped him on the cap with a
stick, while Lawson addressed one man who seemed in
authority, in Chinese, asking him to cause that boy to
be removed. The man turned round with a smile, and
showed a pair of blue eyes : he was a Belgian priest in
Chinese dress. But he cheerfully assisted in handing
the boy out.

Nearly all the Eoman Catholic priests here adopt the
native fashion. But it looks a little odd sometimes. I
remember one man, an Irishman and (as indeed are all
the Fathers I have met) a very pleasant gentleman, who
had only been out a few months, and was obliged to
supplement six inches of auburn hair by a false queue
of the only colour procurable, raven black. There was
no pretence of assimilating them : the true hair stood
up like a horn, two inches from the tip of which the
false tail was suspended.

After service one of the Fathers was kind enough to
take us to his rooms, where he gave us cigars and some
wine made on the establishment. The conversation
was begun in Enghsh, but presently lapsed into French
(I sat modestly silent) ; but such was the force of their
surroundings, or so vivid their recollections of the Tzii-
erh Chi, that every now and then the speakers would

8PBIN0 AND AUTUMN. 171

burst out into Chinese (and my interest in the talk
revived). When BUerby was stationed in the West of
China, his nearest European neighbour lived on the
other side of the mountains some ten miles off, a
French missionary in charge of the converts there.
But EUerby thought it right to call on him, and set off -
one day with that intention. Several hours later the
good Father saw a being bearing down upon him,
covered with dust and in a nondescript costume,
brandishing a formidable-looking stick. He took it for
one of the hillmen, and thought it only prudent to
retreat. But just as the priest reached the back-door
the hillman shouted after him, "Jesuis chr^tien : j'ai
eoif " — and that touch of nature made everything right
at once.

When we had been refreshed we were shown the
grounds and buildings. They have a very large garden,
part of which is planted thickly with trees, part laid out
as a vegetable garden and orchard. In one of the yards
was a cage containing some curious birds, Chrysoptera I
think they were called, and in the small museum a col-
lection of the fauna of the province. The library was
well stocked ; but most of the books were old, though
very valuable, tomes. There is a printing press at the
Pei-t'ang, where the work is done principally, if not
entirely, by natives. The other buildings comprise the
seminary, and a range of little guest-rooms some fifty
in number.

It was, of course, the proper thing to go and see the
Great Wall. The ( pace Herr Miillendorff) original wall

1?2 WBEBE CHINES ES DRIVE.

built by Shih Huang-ti in 215 B.C., or thereabouts, is
some three days' journey from Peking, the nearest
approachable point being the Old Northern Pass, or Ku
pei k'ou. But a much more modern branch crosses the
Southern Pass — better known as Nankow — at only a
day's journey to the north-west. And, consequently,
any visitor whose stay in Peking is limited, if he goes
to the Wall at all, goes to Nankow. Nesbitt, being in
this predicament, asked me to accompany him. I had
never been before, and vyas glad now to go with so plea-
sant a companion. We arranged to do the regular
round, through the grounds of Wan shou shan (where
the Summer Palace once stood) and the village of
Yang-fang'r, to Nankow ; thence up the pass and back
through Nankow to Ch'ang-p'ing Chou (commonly
known as 'Jumping Joe'), from there to T'ang shan
(where the hot springs are), and so back to Peking.

A Chinese inn is made up of a courtyard with stables
on the right and left (or on one side only, as the case
may be), the inn-keeper's rooms and kitchen close to
the gate, and the guest-chambers at the farther end
facing the entrance. The principal room almost invari-
ably consists of three chien or divisions (the term is a
crux to translators), either made apparent by an actual
partition -wall, or to be traced by the beam of the roof,
or to be imagined. In most cases one-third or chien is
partitioned off, and has a doorway fitted with a door or
hanging mat : the other two chien form one room. In
each division there is a h'ang or stove-bed, simply a
broad ledge of brick covered with matting. This is
heated by a stove that usually is lit from within, and

SPBING AND AUTUMN. 173

into which Chinese children occasionally fall. Tumbling
out of bed is discouraged in North China. Besides the
stove-bed, there is generally nothing in the room but a
table, a couple of chairs, and a bench, and, on the
k'ang, a tray about two feet square and six or seven
inches high.

This being the case, it is as necessary to make as
many preparations for an overland trip as it was in
coming up the river. I hired a cart to take my bedding
and boy, while Nesbitt, who had a mind to be comfort-
able, hired two, and laid in a stock of wine and provi-
sions. We took a mafoo with us and a couple of boys.
The first day we tiffined at Wan shou shan in a small
summer-house by the side of the reedy lake, quite
picnic-fashion — that is to say, everything was laid out
on the floor, and we had to sit cross-legged or kneel to get
at it. After tiffin we spent rather too much time roaming
about the ruins. These I will not describe ; for so much
has been written about the Summer Palace, after the
War, that my doing so would be foolhardy and super-
fluous. (A good deal was written on the Summer
Palace during the War, by-the-bye, for we found a
regiment of names scrawled on the walls — with accom-
panying remarks in noinina stultorum.)

Long before we reached Yang-fang'r the sun had set.
And, to add to our troubles, my pony fell lame, and I
had to lead him. Fortunately we 'had sent the carts on
ahead, and so when, tired and hungry, we did reach
Yang-fang'r, we found dinner ready and our beds made
up on the k'ang. How much those dinners were
enjoyed ! (I do not often indulge in a note of exclama-

174 WSEBE CHINI18I1S BBIVE.

tion, but here a grateful memory seemed to call for it.)
Perhaps the chops were overdone, or the chicken smoked,
but we had the old Spartan sauce (and usually Lea and
Perrin's to boot), and our boys never forgot the salt, or
even the bread. Besides, Nesbitt had tins of preserved
soup and pate de foie gras, and other luxuries which he
regarded as absolutely indispensable on such a journey.
Among these, if I remember rightly, were a packet of
black lead for cleaning stoves and a bottle of furniture
polish.

The next morning V7e rode on to Nankow, slowly, so
as not to try my pony too much. We reached the little
town at about nine o'clock, and established ourselves in
an inn, where we began to make preparations for going
up the pass to the Wall. While we were bargaining
for donkeys, a Chinaman came to us and said he was a
guide, and showed us some testimonials given him by
former travellers. One was in French, from a deaf and
dumb member of the Alpine Club, I think, and observed
that that man had looked after him as though he had
been his father. We explained that we were not deaf
and dumb, nor orphaned in any way, and really could
dispense with his services, whereat he turned sadly away.
Meanwhile the donkeys had been hired at the exorbitant
charge of a dollar a head. Three City tiao (10-^d.)
vrould have more than met the case ; but Nankow is
over-visited, and prices have gone up in consequence.
We had our pony saddles transferred to the donkeys, for
the native pillows were not inviting.

The change of saddles has its advantages, but it
sometimes proves a little embarrassing. The Bertrams

SPBING AND AUTUMN. 175

were riding out to the hills one day on donkeys, Ber-
tram the least bit in front, when the hind-girth of Mrs.
Bertram's saddle — which was secured under the donkey's
tail — broke, and Mrs. Bertram and the saddle were
thrown forward on to the donkey's head. She caught
hold of Bertram to save herself, but pulled him with
her to the ground. When they realised the situation
they were sitting opposite one another on the road,
while between them stood the donkey gazing earnestly
at them, the saddle hanging over his face like a coal-
scuttle bonnet.

The Nankow donkeys are not large, and Nesbitt cannot
weigh less than twelve stone. Still he was a little huffy
when I told him he and his donkey looked like an im-
proper fraction : said he did not see the point of that joke,
and believed it was an old one, anyhow. Then we entered
the pass. This is scarcely better than the bed of a
mountain torrent : for very little has been done to make
a decent road through it, although the trafl&c is great.
We met or passed strings of camels laden for the most
part with tea for Kalgan and Kiakhta ; drovers with
their flocks ; litters swung between two mules ; and
passengers on foot or on horseback. There were officials
going to, or returning from, their posts beyond the Wall,
accompanied by their families. The ladies were in
closed mule litters, so small that you would think it no
easy matter to get into them ; once in, to change your
position would be impossible. It is said that the Korean
litters — sedan-chairs they can hardly be called — are
smaller still, and that the doubts of the members of the
late expedition as to the possibility of entering these

176 WSEBE CSINESES BBIVE.

were only solved by the bearers, who — ceremoniously
enough — bundled their fares in, neck and crop.

The bed of the stream that runs down the pass is full
of great boulders, and in and out of these the path
winds, no easy going even for the mules who know it
well, and tiring enough to our unaccustomed feet. The
hills on each side are very picturesque There and there
a peach-tree in full bloom, higher up a little pine wood,
and, crowning the summit, an old stone fort. Halfway
up the pass is a small walled village, its gateways not
spared by time, though the old portcullis is still there.
Beyond this the hills begin to close in and the pass is
narrower and steeper. Just at a bend, where the rocks
are almost perpendicular, a little temple has been hewn
out of the stone, and hangs some twenty feet above the
road. The priests mount to their perch by perilous
steps chipped out of the face of the hill. And there
were little shrines with mild-faced Buddhas, and at one
point carved on the mountain side high above us, the

ever-present Fo /Jffl? the Chinese Budh, in strokes

many feet in length. The air grew colder and keener,
and snowdrifts still lingered in clefts and shadowy caves.
We climbed painfully, tired with our four hours' journey,
up a steeper ascent, and pausing to look up, there,
against the sky-line, was the Wall.

I do not think at first that we viewed it in any other
Ught than as a place to tiffin at : Nesbitt said he was
much too hungry for sentiment. And so we mounted
by stone stairs cut in the thickness of the wall to one
of the small square towers that guard it at close

8PBING AND AUTUMN. 177

intervals along its whole length. The tower was roof-
less, one-storied, with windows or doorways in the
four sides. On the floor lay a number of small cannon,
rusty and useless — as cannon : piled up they served
well enough for seat and table. Nesbitt's boy had
packed our lunch, with a bottle of claret and sherry and
two of water. It was far too cold for a long drink, and
so the remnants of the feast that were given to the
donkeymen included two full bottles of water and the
modest remainder of the sherry and claret. As we
drew near to Nankow, on our way back, I was made
arbiter of a dispute. Nesbitt's donkeyman had one of
the full bottles tasting and smelling ; my man the other.
The first said it really was very like water, but the
other declared that as foreigners never drank water it
must be a foreign spirit of some kind. When they
learnt that it was water after all, they solemnly turned
those bottles upside down, disgusted that they had care-
fully carried such trash all the way from the Wall.

TiflSn over, we felt more equal to the duty of exploring
and admiring. Unfortunately the first thing we came
across was the skeleton of some poor wretch that had
died, or, who knows ? (Nesbitt, at this point, having
tiffined, became sentimental and imaginative) been mur-
dered, in this lonely spot. We got over that, and
looked about us. We were just above the Grate, through
which a string of camels was passing, about to descend
the valley to Ch'a-t'ou on the plain at our feet. From
where we stood the mountains rose one above the other
till they faded in the distance, and along their sides,
now dipping down into a ravine, now mounting to the

12

178 WHERE GHINE8E8 DRIVE.

summit of the peaks, ran the Wall. The air was so
clear that all our ideas of distance were changed, and
Nesbitt proposed as an afternoon's stroll to walk along
the rampart till we reached a tower he pointed out
against the sky. The donkeymen said we might get
there that day week : only as we were not used to that
sort of work we should probably succumb before we
were half-way. So Nesbitt reluctantly abandoned the
idea. But we did climb up to the next tower, and hard
enough work I found it : for every now and then the
wall rose so steeply that steps had been built, not com-
fortable, jog-trot steps, but steps two feet or so high.
A little of this went (in one sense) a long way, and
I sat down presently and firmly declined to budge.
Nesbitt said this was a weak surrendering ; he meant to
mount higher. Soon, however, he came down and said
he wondered how those fellows had managed to build
the thing, and when they had built it to walk along it :
he had seen enough, he thought, and had not we better
be getting back ? So we got back.

The next day we arranged to go to the Ming Tombs.
The " Thirteen Sepulchres," as they are called, lie at the
upper end of a long valley that narrows at its mouth,
through which the road runs southward to Peking. Ap-
proaching the valley from Ch'ang-p'ing Chou, the entrance
is marked by a p'ai-lou, or portal, of five arches. The
road to the Tombs, however, no longer passes under this,
but winds round it in a deep track worn down by the feet
and the rains of centuries. Beyond, a triple gateway,
massive and heavy, without ornament of any kind,
plastered red and topped with yellow tiles. A few yards

SPRING AND AUTUMN. 179

further on, the Tablet of the Ming, a huge slab of
marble borne on the back of a tortoise, in a building
four-square, with arched gateways on every side. In
the direction of the diagonals, some forty feet from each
corner, stands a pillar, with the curious rostrum at its
apex. Beyond is the celebrated Avenue. Eanged on
each side of the road are stone figures of tigers, horses,
camels, and elephants, and a nondescript sort of animal
which may be a leopard or a lion. These are in pairs,
standing and kneeling. The elephants and camels are
perhaps the best executed : the feet of the kneeling
elephants are turned out in the orthodox way, by-the-
bye. But a pony, if he does not (as is his wont) shy
at the first figures and refuse to pass them, has been
known to neigh to the stone horses and of his own
accord to go up to them. It is rather stupid of the
pony, though, for the figures are after all clumsily
carved : the legs are of a uniform thickness of some
eight inches in diameter. Beyond the animals are
several statues of kings and sages, aU of superhuman
size. The Avenue is closed by a p'ai-lou. From this
point the valley descends and widens, till it is closed by
a vast amphitheatre of hills, at the foot of which are
seen the Thirteen Tombs. The road through the valley
is now very irregular. In parts it has been completely
washed away by mountain streams, once crossed by
bridges whose broken arches still remain ; in parts the
cart-wheels of the peasants who now cultivate the valley
have worn through pavement and soil to the depth of
several feet, leaving slabs of stone on each side to mark
the old level.

12 *

180 WHERE GHINE8E8 DRIVE.

Nesbitt and I left Nankow in the morning, and took tte
shortest way through the hills, striking the valley between
the Avenue and the Tombs, by which we lost the full effect
of the approach. We had for guide a donkeyman. He
took us to the show-tomb, that- of Yung-lo, the third
Emperor of the Ming, who transferred his capital from
Nanking to Peking at the commencement of the fifteenth
century. Each tomb is surrounded by a wall, with the
Imperial red plaster and yellow tiles, and in the centre
of this is the usual triple entrance. Our guide hunted
up a fellow with the key, who let us in by one of the
side doors. Inside, the courts we passed through in
succession were planted with trees that even in the faint
breeze kept up a murmur strangely mournful. Opposite
the entrance was the Hall of Incense, approached by
marble steps. Within stood a small shrine, containing
the tablet of the deceased monarch, and protected by a
screen of lattice-work, in front of which an incense
table was placed. The pillars that support the roof of
this hall are of immense height, and consist each one
of the single trunk of a tree, floated down from the
forests of Ssii-ch'uan, in all probability. - Behind the
hall is another courtyard closed by a massive square
tower of stone, in which are staircases leading to the
top of the wall that surrounds the tumulus, an enor-
mous artificial mound covered with trees. I think that
this tomb is the most impressive of all Chinese buildings
I have seen : for here neglect only seems to add to its
beauty.

And yet, perhaps, the Ming tombs are less neglected
than many other places. For as a matter of policy the

SPEING AND AUTUMN. 181

present dynasty make some effort to keep them in
repair (though it is said that much timber and marble
was at one time carried away from here to ornament
the palaces at Yiian-ming Yiian). And every year the
head of the dispossessed family, the Marquis Chu, is
sent by the Government to worship at his ancestral
tombs and to report on their condition. I never met
him, for on the first occasion on which I visited the
tombs (when I was with Nesbitt), I found he had just
returned to Peking ; and on the second, he was just
expected to arrive — and in fact did arrive, and was
interviewed by a party of Europeans who had started a
little later than Gordon (who was then with me) and
myself.

It was on this latter occasion that one of the disad-
vantages of a Chinese inn was unpleasantly brought
home to me. Gordon and I put up for the night at
" Jumping Joe," and, as the weather was cold, we had
a pan of charcoal brought into the room : for the
extravagance of a fireplace is undreamt of by the natives
of North China. We made ourselves comfortable on
the k'ang and were soon asleep. In the middle of the
night I was awakened by a feeling of sufibcation, but
managed to grope my way to the door, and to shout for
the boy. Then I felt dizzy and sat down on the door-
step. However, the boy brought me some water, and
I soon was all right again. But I declined to have the
brazier in the room after that.

I was acting as guide on my second visit, but some-
how we went to the wrong tomb. They are so much
alike that for a long time I could hardly be sure that it

182 WHUnu 0HINE8E8 DBIVE.

was the wrong tomb after all. But G-ordon was so dis-
appointed with the size of the pillars, after my enthusi-
astic description of them (and they really did seem to me
to have dwindled considerably), that I was convinced at
last that we were astray. It seemed that the tomb we
visited was that of Chia-ching (1521-1566), but as it
was called the Yung ling (lingua, sepulchre or tumulus),
I had rashly jumped to the conclusion that it was the
tomb of Yung-lo, which is 1 40 years older, and known as
the Ch'ang-ling. It was sad : however, Gordon thought
that if they were so much alike as all that, it was per-
haps hardly worth while to go to the other tomb —
besides, we wanted to return to Peking that day. On
the way back we met Owen in great form, with a mafoo,
a boy, and two donkeymen. Owen proposed a drink,
and his boy produced a bottle of whisky, one of water,
and two tumblers. Fancy the luxury of two tumblers
in the middle of that lonely valley ! In return we
warned him to go to the right tomb, at which his boy
looked really hurt. He said he had taken several
foreigners there before. He evidently thought that we
had brought our misfortunes on ourselves by not having
taken a boy.

Nesbitt and I, having a donkeyman as guide, had
been all right. The day after our return to Nankow,
as rain threatened, we decided to leave T'ang shan
alone, and go straight to Peking. We did go to Peking,
though not exactly straight : for we wasted much time,
owing to Nesbitt's fondness for short cuts and my con-
fused notion of the points of the compass. But we got
back at last, and in time for dinner.

SPUING AND AUTUMN. 183

I went to the real old Wall, as we used to consider it,
at Ku pei K'ou, at the close of winter. This journey
takes six days, and winter travelling requires more
preparation than a trip in spring-time. I bought a
Mongolian cap, a huge thing, of red flannel, wadded,
and trimmed with fur, having ear-flaps that could be
tied under the chin and leave little of the face unco-
vered. Also a pair of Mongolian socks made of some
sort of felt. These were to be drawn over the boot,
and did, it is true, keep one's feet comfortably warm,
but the getting them off at night . . . ! The first
evening I managed to pull one off after half-an-hour's
painful effort, then tried again at the other after dinner
with no success ; so, thinking things would be easier if
I could unlace my boot, made a slit down the front to
get at the lace, but in so doing cut it to pieces. How-
ever, I became used to the socks in time and learnt to
be patient. In the cold night we thought it ill-advised
to undress : on the contrary, we put on more clothes,
doing as North China does.

For some time our course lay along the banks of the
Pei-ho, now frozen fast. In places where fords are
found in summer were bridges made of turf and the
stalks of the kao Hang laid on the ice. After leaving
the Pei-ho we encountered a dust-storm, and had a
miserable morning, leading our ponies across a bare
sandy plain in the teeth of an icy wind, half blinded
and choked by the dust. These dust-storms are the
plague of Peking in the dry season. The dust is so
fine that it will get inside the glass of a watch ; and in
the morning after a stormy night, though the windows

184 WHERE GHINE8E8 DBIVE.

have been carefully pasted up (as they are in the winter
time), it covers the vfindow-sill. Probably the noisy
and most objectionable coughing the natives keep up is
due to the irritation produced on their lungs by this
dust. If soj it has much to answer for. The end of
the plain brought us to a small walled town and our
tiffin. Warm water was produced in wooden tubs, and
we washed our faces — very gingerly, though, for they
were cut and bleeding from the effects of that horrible
dust.

The rest of the journey was got through in very plea-
sant weather. A few hours brought .us to the foot of
the mountains, which we entered by a narrow ravine.
On one side was the pathway, only a few feet broad,
and on the other a stream now frozen, in spite of the
steep inclination of its bed, and producing a strange
effe'ct, for at a distance it looked as though it were still
flowing. The third day we took a short cut, a bridle-
path that led over the mountains into a small valley ;
then past some forts on to Ku pei K'ou. The valley
was used, we were told, as an exercise-ground for the
garrison of the forts, I suppose in their old-world
manoeuvres, though we called it the " Artillery Ground."

The town or fortress of Ku pei K'ou is nearly in the
form of an S, the road winding upwards between hills
topped with crumbling fortifications, till after passing
through the upper town it reaches the gate in the Great
Wall. Every spur has its rampart, and we were puzzled
to know which of these was the real Wall. We climbed
painfully up to one, but, looking towards the north, saw
another beyond it. This we decided to leave till the

SPBING AND AUTUMN. 185

next morning, and meanwhile adjourned to an inn for
dinner. After breakfast on the morrow we made our
way to the Wall through the streets, or rather street
(for it has but one), of the town. At the gate our
mafoo was asked for our passports. These are required
by all foreigners travelling in China beyond a distance of
some thirty-fiye miles from Peking or any of the Treaty
Ports. These vised, we climbed some little way up the
Wall and made remarks more or less suited to the occa-
sion. But we took Bertram's advice, and brought away
no bricks.

The country beyond Ku pei K'ou is a part of the
province of Chih-li, and not, strictly speaking, Mongolia.
But shooting excursions beyond the Wall are often
described as "trips in MongoHa." These usually come
off in the autumn. The country is a succession of hills
and dales, covered in summer with grass and brush-
wood, which is fired towards the end of autumn, and
the hills left for the most part quite bare. There
are few trees, though here and there is a belt of
pine-wood. The ground is covered with snow at
the beginning of winter, and a tramp through this
soaks the thickest boots : then they freeze and have
to be cut down to the heel before they can be put on
again.

When Randolph and Manners were in this country
they travelled with the usual complement of carts and
a mafoo. But one afternoon they found themselves
some three miles from their sleeping stage, and the sun
nearly setting. They told the carters to hurry up, and
meanwhile rode on with the mafoo as guide. On the

186 WHEUE CHINESES DRIVE.

way they came across a head or two hung over the
road, and the mafoo explained that these were the
remains of some of the numerous robhers that infested
those parts, gibbeted in terrorem ; and added that it was
hardly likely the carters would pass the horrid things in
the twilight. But Randolph and Manners hoped better
things — for all their food and bedding were on the carts
— and pushed on. They reached their inn in time, and
waited with growing impatience, unrewarded, for no
carts appeared. The inn was as bare as all Chinese
inns are, and abnormally draughty, and it was freezing
hard. Finally the landlord borrowed some felt rugs
and rough sheep-skin coats for them, and with these
they made shift for bedding. Randolph says a sheep-
skin coat is not bad if you put your legs through the
sleeves and curl yourself up in the rest of it.

They fared indifferently that night on some greasy
preparation of the landlord's, so next morning Manners
announced that he would cook. He got hold of a sort
of frying-pan, but the only meat he could find to
operate on was part of an awfully sinewy leg of beef.
Manners declined to use any pig's fat to lard his pan,
and Randolph says the result was not exactly what one
would call savoury ; in fact, at first he thought Manners
had helped him to a little of the charcoal by mistake.
However, they made up all short-comings by a good
appetite and profuse Ido pings. These lao pings are
small lumps of dough that are just allowed to rise in
the pan and are then considered cooked : very indi-
gestible things, but, Randolph says, in Mongolia, and
when you take plenty of honey with them, they are

SPRING ANB AUTUMN. 187

almost nice. But apparently you can eat anything (you
can get) in Mongolia.

They (as the men before them) put up at a kind of
farm-house, overrun by huge MongoUan dogs, so savage
that there was no venturing outside their door after
nightfall without an escort. These quarters reached,
they did not roam about much, for there was plenty of
sport for the energetic in the neighbourhood. They
say the average bag for a day in Mongolia is thirty
brace, ten brace being considered good at Shanghai.
But, if this is so, our sportsmen must either have been
lazy and not gone out many days, or else have lost
most of their birds on the way back, for when, on two
or three occasions, we counted over the spoils brought
home, and did a little division sum, the result was by
no means so satisfactory.

To reach Mongolia Proper the shortest way is, per-
haps, through Nankow and Kalgan. Here the ground
is a vast level, where the grass grows above one's head.
A clearing in this is most picturesque, the hut and
grazing ground shut in by a wall of grass. In autumn
all this is cut down or fired, and nothing is to be seen
but the open plain, unless it is a Mongol encampment
or a troop of shaggy ponies. The traveller must sleep
in a Mongol tent, a circular or hexagonal structure of
willow-work and felt, with a stove in the centre, above
which is an opening for the smoke, closed at night.
Jackson, who spent some little time there, describes
the Mongols of this district as hospitable and well-
disposed. He was very much amused when he was
taken to see a bride who, for the last week, had been

188 WHERE GHINESES DRIVE.

dressing for her wedding, though it was not to come
off for ten days or so. From her appearance, he
thinks that all her friends must have been invited to
make suggestions for her toilet, and if this considers a
blue petticoat becoming, and that a red one, both are
put on — and remain on.

The autumn, say September or early October, is the
best time for travelling in North China. Except that
then the insect world is particularly active — knowing
there is little time to be lost, I suppose — and that
Chinese inns are its favourite haunt. On the wall,
about a foot and a half above each k'ang, may be
generally seen a mysterious mottled line ; it is the
execution ground of these disturbers of a Chinaman's
slumber.

In autumn, too, and occasionally in spring as well,
are h^ld the Peking Eace Meetings. The race-course
lies in the country a mile or so from the western wall
of the city, and was, I believe, a gift of the Tsung-li
Yamen. It is under the management of the Peking
Club, of which, indeed, its tiny Grand Stand and the
little buildings attached to the Skating-rink are the
only visible sign. This Grand Stand is built on the
east side of the course, and consequently fronts west
and the hills some eight or nine miles away. During
the summer months it is let (or at any rate offered) as
a kind of bungalow. The circular inviting tenders for
the season states that it " contains two rooms, 26 ft.
by 15 ft. and 14 ft. by 15 ft. respectively, a kitchen,
and a kitchen-garden." They have not called it a

SPRING AND AUTUMN. 189

"desirable family residence" or a "detached villa"
yet ; but when the railway runs from Tientsin to the
valley of the Hun, and brings its excursionists to the
Derbyshire of North China, such will doubtless be
the case. However, except that it must be a little hot,
it might prove a good place to read in ; there would
not be many distractions. At present they have insti-
tuted a very pleasant arrangement by which tea and
other things may be obtained there by thirsty people on
Saturday afternoons.

Eace-meetings are necessarily very much alike —
though perhaps in Peking they are less so than else-
where, as Gordon put it. After appointing a Eace
Committee, two Judges, a Starter, and a Clerk of the
Course, entries are invited for the various races. Here
is a programme of a recent meeting : —

1st Eace : MAIDEN PLATE. Value #75. One mile. For ponies
that liave never run before. Entrance ^^5. 4 entries.

2nd Eace : TAMEN PEIZE. Presented by the Ministers of the
Tsung-li-Tamen. Tls 75 to the first pony ; Tls 25 to
the second; third pony to save his entrance. Two
miles. For Peking-owned Ponies only. Entrance
$10. 4 entries.

3rd Eace : LADIES' PDESE. Presented by the Ladies of Pe-
king. For Ponies owned and ridden by Peking
Eesidents only. Weight 12 stone. Once round.
Entrance $6. 3 entries.

4th Eace : MINISTEES' CUP. Value ^^100. | Mile. Presented
by the Foreign Eepresentatives at Peking. Second
Pony to save his Entrance. Entrance $6. 9 entries.

5th Eace : HAIKIJAlSr CHALLENGE CUP. Value Tls 100 and
WO added from the Fund, if won for the first time.
Presented by Egbert Hakt, Esquire, and other
Gentlemen of the Imperial Maritime Customs. The

190 WHERE 0HINE8E8 DRIVE.

Cup to become tte property of any Grentleman

residing at Peking whose pony, or ponies, win it

two years consecutively. 1^ mile. Entrance $5.

8 entries.
6th Race : HACK STAKES. Value ^50. For all Peking-owned

ponies regularly ridden as Hacks and not otherwise

entered for this meeting. Once round. Entrance

$5. 3 entries.
7th Eace : CHAMPION STAKES. Value 100. A forced entry

of ^10 each for all winners except the Hack Stakes ;

optional for all other ponies that have run at this

meeting. One mile. 15 entries.

This programme settled, the next thing is to have
the Tiao Lottery. Anyone can take one or more
tickets— price 2 tiao (say 7^d.) apiece — in a lottery for
each race. When the numbers are all taken there is
a solemn drawing in the Eeading-room (which, for this
occasion only, O'Hara says, ought to be called the
"Drawing-room "). Tables are ranged the whole length
of the room, and at the end sit three members of the
Eace Committee. Before Ehadamanthus stands the
Urn — one of the mess soup-tureens. This is filled
with gun-wads, numbered from 1 to 120 or 150, as the
case may be. Then a pony and a number are drawn
and the winner named. This is slow work so far,
especially for those who do not draw a pony. But after
this the ponies are put up to auction, and sometimes,
when a favourite is up, the bidding is most lively. The
purchaser of a pony pays twice his bid, once to the
drawer, once into the fund, the prize being the amount
of tickets taken, plus the sums given for all the ponies
in each race ; so that where the bidding has been brisk
it might come to 600 or 700 tiao, or between 50 and

SPRING AND AUTUMN. 191

60 dollars. That oyer, the next thing is to wait for
the race-day, which is usually a Saturday.

The first race is advertised to take place at 11 ; but
some hours before that the road to the course is filled
with Chinamen on foot or on donkeyback, in chairs or
on ponies. Through fields unenclosed, except by a
low mud wall— covered, if it be spring, with violets,
scentless, it is true, but still violets^ — past temples and
grave-yards, the road winds until a semi-circle of sand-
hills is reached. Within their arc is a large pool or
marsh, where countless frogs are croaking disapproval
of the meeting, not, indeed, with the energy they
would have displayed at night, but in a drowsy, half-
hearted manner. The outer rim of the sand-hills
touches the course, and where their curve ends is built
the Grand Stand ; so that a capital view of the races
can be had even by the unprivileged, who will stay
there all day, a long line of faded blue, watching their
mandarins arrive, and the foreigners develop a new
phase of — well, put it mildly and say, eccentricity.

Lunch is provided in the upper rooms of the Stand,
and early in the day a Committee-man or two will
appear, anxiously scrutinising the cook's arrangements,
or looking out for the guests. Some half-dozen of the
latter are Chinamen, members of the Tsung-li Yamen
for the most part : one, the Commandant of Peking,
who sometimes brings his little son. They are pre-
ceded by a few of their subordinates or satellites, white
or blue buttons, who while away the time by trying to
make sense of the Chinese race-cards, and are puzzled
that a pony should be described as "green," but,

192 WHERE CHINE8ES DRIVE.

being polite, make allowances. Presently their seniors
arrive and are taken possession of by the Foreign
Ministers or their Chinese Secretaries. They profess
themselves delighted with everything, and hazard a few
remarks about the racing, truisms for the most part,
whereof your literary Chinamen has always an abun-
dant stock : " Strong ponies generally run farther and
faster than weak ones." "It is not always the horse
who gets away first that wins," and the like. They
are plainly affected by the tiffin,, and become inquisi-
tive. The weighing-machine attracts them, and they
even condescend to be weighed — result, in one case,
216 lbs.

Two or three races are first run, then everyone settles
down to the real business of the day — the tiffin. For
Peking race-meetings are picnics first, and race-meetings
a very long way after. Tiffin drawing to a close, the
Doyen proposes the health of the members of the Tsung-
li Yam^n, who, through bashfulness apparently, do not
reply, though most of the cosmopolitan assembly have
a smattering of Chinese. We are a very fair epitome
of all mankind : one nationality to every two men and
a half, O'Hara calculates. O'Hara is our prize poly-
glot ; nothing comes amiss to him, and his only regret is
that the Inspector-General of Customs does not see his
way clearly enough to appoint a Hottentot to the staff
of the Peking office, and give O'Hara a chance of
testing his theory as to the identity of the Hottentot
dental click and the Chinese fourth tone.

Herr von Z. was, it is said, an enthusiast in a similar
line. His G-overnment sent him out to study Pekingese,

SPBING AND AUTUMN. 193

and after twelve months had elapsed his Minister sum-
moned him and asked what progress he was making.
" Excellent," was the reply, " I 've just completed the
second volume." " Second volume ? Ah! oi ihe Tzii-
erh Chi, I suppose?" "The Tzu-erh Ghi? What
Tzu-erh Ghi ? Oh, Sir Thomas Wade's Chinese Course !
No, to tell the truth, I haven't begun Chinese yet : I
meant the second volume of my work on Hungarian
Syntax." And yet the Minister recommended his
Government to recall him.

" Our own correspondent " attended the Race-meeting,
and in his " Peking Letter " was quite excited over " the
vast numbers of Chinamen present." There were three
or four hundred, perhaps ; but the Correspondent could
hardly have had time to count them before tiffin. In
this Letter he, for some reason or other, developed an
unusual moroseness, and declared that " the proceedings
were brought to a close by a donkey-race which was a
miserable failure." Now that donkey-race the students
had been at great pains to get up, and it was therefore
in the nature of things impossible that it could be a
failure. Nor was it : indeed, from the proper point of
view, it was a magnificent success. The regulations
were carefully drawn up : " the donkeys to be bond fide
donkeys " (we were not quite sure what that meant, but
it sounded well), and " shall be ridden without stirrups
and on a Chinese pack-saddle " (the grammar was in-
volved, but scarcely as hard as the condition) ; lastly,
"it is immaterial whether the donkeys carry their riders
or their riders them."

We had some eight or ten entries. My donkey was

13

194 WHERE GHTNESE8 DRIVE.

a little wiry black fellow, and I had hired him on the
terms that the owner was to have four dollars if he won,
and nothing if he lost. (Every Chinaman is at heart a
gambler — in so far as he can be said to have a heart at
all.) A table was placed in front of the Grand Stand,
and in the centre of the course. Bound this we had
to race, the whole distance being some 300 yards. My
donkey started off at a furious pace and led ; then
stopped suddenly, and, while he was trying to remember
what it was he had forgotten, I went over his head. I
attempted to get on again ; but whether he was too
small, or I too impetuous, I do not know : somehow I
missed the donkey altogether, and came over on the
other side, " as though I was playing leap-frog," Gordon
said. (Gordon was busy at the time trying to catch his
beast, which had bolted, and I do not believe he saw
me.) Meanwhile the leading donkey had turned the
post, or, more strictly speaking, got round the table,
and the owner of mine began to think I had fooled long
enough, and, not being able to control his feelings, ran
on to the course and tried to drag my beast along. I
have very confused notions as to what happened after
that. I got mixed up, irretrievably as it seemed at the
time, with the donkeyman and the donkey, but the
three of us came in at last, beating Gordon by a neck.
Bertram, who was judge, said that we were only twenty
minutes behind the winner, the one man, by-the-bye,
who had contrived to keep his seat. And they call that
a " miserable failure ! "

The students were, by some unaccountable error in
judgment, discouraged from taking part in any but

SPRING AND AUTUMN. 196

scratch races, except as spectators. We felt hurt, but
did not wish to show it by being conspicuously absent.
On the contrary, we resolved to be conspicuously present.
We held a mess meeting, and various striking effects
were suggested. Finally it was resolved that we should
each hire a camel, and, having carefully strung the
camels together with due regard to seniority (of their
riders), should defile on to the course preceded by the
head coolie with the dinner-gong, and supported on
either side by boys and mafoos on donkeyback with
trumpets. We were to arrive just as lunch was begin-
ning, and march solemnly past the Grand Stand. We
were convinced that the thing would attract remark. I
forget why the scheme ganged agley, but it did.

Later on in autumn, when all the crops were in, took
place paper-chases on ponyback. As the hares always
let the line of country they were going to take be
known, there was much more steeple-chasing than
hunting about these runs. Indeed, the usual thing
was for two or three enthusiastic rival spirits to rush
away at the start, and, with supreme disregard
for the track, go straight across country. It tried
the Master of the Hounds considerably, and the
ponies' legs even more. And when the whole thing
was over (by which time the hares, tired of waiting
to be caught, had come to look after the hounds),
there would be animated disputes as to who, allowing
for the number of ditches leaped and fences cleared,
had really come in, or come out, first.

There was a challenge cup labelled " for the high

13 *

196 WSEBE OSINESES BBTVB.

jump," but I am not aware that anybody ever competed
for it. Why, I do not know : perhaps its singular ugli-
ness (it professed to be a Kang-hsi porcelain vase)
had something to do with it. It seems aimless to
win a thing when you have to stow it away out of sight
immediately afterwards, lest its hideousness should
compel you, however reluctantly, to smash it. Then,
again, your name and exploit cannot well be engraved
on a china jar, and that deprives it of half its value
at once — ^for what paper-chaser would consent to hide
his light under a bushel ?

197

VI. At the Hills.

Looking westward from the race-course you can see at
some nine miles' distance a long range of hills. These
are the Hsi Shan, or Western mountains. At the point
in these hills where the line of the north wall of the city
would, if extended, cross the range, a gorge winds
down to the- plain, broadening as it descends. Here
the sides of the hill have been terraced and planted
with trees, and on as many dijBferent levels stand the
Eight Temples which have given the place its name.
The hills on each side are bare, except for the scanty
grass ; and across the great plain Pa ta ch'u seems a
dark blot on the side of the mountain, near the bottom
of which is a streak of white. This is the pagoda of
Ling-kuang Ssu, the second in order, and perhaps the
largest in extent, of the Eight Temples.

Approaching Pa ta ch'u from the city the first of the
temples is the one known as Ch'ang-ngan Ssu, or
the " Temple of Perpetual Peace," as its present lessee

198 WHEBE GHINB8E8 BBIVE.

translates it. It stands on the plain at the foot of the
hills, and is at some little distance from the stone path
that winds up to the other temples. In front of it is
the bed of what in the rainy season is a torrent, used,
in spite of the boulders that fill it, as a road in the dry
season, nevertheless. Following this road to the right you
come first to a group of huts, then to the path leading
to a small plateau where some rough stables have been
built, then to a tea-house lately repaired. Beyond this
the valley divides : or perhaps it would be more correct
to say that here two of the ravines that form this valley
meet. A road running by the side of the northern
ravine brings you to the temple of Pi mo yen ; another
leads up to the remaining six temples. These, in order,
are Ling-kuang Ssii (it is more easily approached by a
road below the tea-house), San-shan An'r, Ta-pei Ssii,
Lung-wang T'ang, Hsiang-chieh Ssii, and Pao chu
tung. Of these the first three are not far from the
foot of the hill ; from Ta-pei Ssii to Lung-wang T'ang
is some five or six minutes' climb ; thence the paved
path winds among the trees and along the edge of the
ravine for some little distance till Hsiang-chieh Ssu is
reached. The highest of all is little Pao chu tung,
perched on a terrace not far from the summit.

With the one exception of Pi mo yen, all these
temples were leased or let to Europeans. In our time
Ta-pei Ssii was knov^n as the "Students' Temple,"
San-shan An'r, as the " American," and Lung-wang
T'ang and Hsiang-chieh Ssii, as the " Kussian " and the
" Secretaries' " temples respectively. Ch'ang-ngan Ssii
was rented by a medical missionary, Ling-kuang Ssu, on

AT THE HILLS. 199

a short lease, by several missionary families, while Pao
ehu tung was more or less in the market. The rents in
these various temples varied very much according to the
accommodation in them and their height above the plain,
the lower temples bearing a higher rent. They vpere
either leased for a term of years or taken for the season
from the end of April to the middle of October — the
greedy priests making no reduction for shortness of
tenure. For Ta-pei Ssu we gave $100, while I believe
the rent of Ling-kuang Ssu was double that sum.

The approach to Ta-pei Ssii was very beautiful. The
paved road ran along the edge of a mountain torrent,
the bank being built up for greater security with large
rough blocks of stone. On the other side of the path
w^as the rock, and, for the ravine here was very narrow,
trees met overhead, shading road and stream. The
main entrance to the temple, a flight of stone stairs, has
been blocked as a punishment to the priests (or the
deities ?) for permitting a suicide to take place in the
enclosure. One of the bonzes* had greatly insulted a
coolie, so the story went, and he, instead of attacking
his persecutor, had, with the perverseness of your true
Chinaman, taken vengeance on him by committing sui-
cide. It was difficult for us to sympathise with him, as
in consequence we had to go some little way round to
reach the court. Here, as a further punishment to the
temple, a stone tablet had been set up in record, and one
of the two poles, that with their acorn-shaped tops of
yellow porcelain should mark the entrance, had been

* Bonne, ' a priest,' Portuguese honzo, from Japanese husso, ' a
pious man.'

200 WEEBE 0HINE8ES BBIVE.

removed. On the right of this court a small gateway
led to the back of the entrance-hall. Thence a steep
flight of steps ran up to the second court, in the middle
of which stood the principal "joss-house." Side build-
ings formed the guest-chambers, of which there were
three, and the rooms for the priests. A side door in the
guest-chamber to the right opened on to a small plat-
form with a drop of ten or twelve feet on the other three
sides. Upon it stood a round stone table shaded by a
tree. Here was the summer dining-room of the stu-
dents, overlooking the plain, the slope leading up to Pi
mo yen on the left, and on the right, some hundred
yards below, the terrace of San-shan An'r.

Twelve or fourteen feet above the second court was a
third, like it approached by a stone stairway. Here a
range of joss-houses ended in a fourth guest-chamber,
somewhat larger than those below, but having, like two
of them, one-third partitioned off to serve as a bed-room.
On the wall was traced a Eussian monogram, the strokes
some eighteen inches in length, with the date 1832.
What value it had in the eyes of the priests, I do not
know — perhaps they regarded it as a specimen of Wes-
tern belles lettres, much as they themselves hang up
grotesque and, to us, illegible scrolls, and admire them
as triumphs of penmanship — but, anyway, they had
preserved it religiously, and, in papering the walls, had
left it uncovered. Ta-pei Ssu must have been a favourite
resort of the members of the Russian Mission between
1828 and 1840, by the way, for scratched on the wall
outside this room are many traces of their presence ;
as these — I translate the Russian, or rather our poly-

AT THE HILLS. 201

glottic O'Hara has done it for me, and I have taken it
on trust —

1828 Xp.

1831. Here were Christians.

KOI eyo) €v ApKO&iq,.

Dr. Bunge 1831.
(The accents are Dr. Bunge's own.)

Here is Arcadia, but where are the shepherdesses ? 1834
(in a doggrel couplet).
In another place some Russian names, and the date 1850.

If the number and length of the services performed
there is a proof of devotion, the priests at Ta-pei Ssii
vere very devout indeed. They began at four in the
morning and had three or four performances in the
course of the day. There was one little shami or novice
vrho chanted rather well. He used to come to us for
fruit and cakes, and visitors usually tipped him — though
I suppose the old pries.ts took everything. I gave him
a bright ten-cent piece one day, saying that he was a
small boy and should have a small coin ; but presently
up came a fat priest and had the coolness to ask for a
dollar, on the ground that he was a big man. It does
not pay to argue with a Chinaman in his own language,
so I made sundry forcible remarks to him in English
and went my way.

There is a great deal of human nature in these fellows,
and perhaps even more in their followers. Tou will see
a band of pilgrims kotowing at the various shrines.
Presently a priest comes round to make the collection,
and each pilgrim carefully brings out his store of worn-
out and broken cash, and the iron cash no tradesman
could be persuaded to take, and drops a selection into

202 WHERE GHINE8E8 DRIVE.

the plate. The priest goes away, and slowly looks
through the coins. Then he sadly empties the plate into
the nearest dust-bin, and reflects on the decay of piety
in modern China.

The surroundings of Ta-pei Ssii were worthy of the
approach to it. On the south side it was overhung by
rocks, over which a little stream tumbled. Above and
below were trees, with climbing wild vines. On the
north side and in front of the temple ran the mountain
torrent that has carved out this valley. At certain
seasons of the year it was dry or nearly so ; but former
students had removed the boulders from part of its bed,
and formed a small basin that made a capital bathing-
place when the rains had filled it. It does not often
rain at Peking, but when it does the windows of heaven
are opened, or, as the Chinese say, it is as though a
bucket had been upset. The rain has no time to divide
itself into drops ; it comes down all at once, and it keeps
on with the same energy for three or four days. After
one of these storms every road leading to the hills, and
every channel in the hills, becomes an almost impassable
torrent. Poor Von Gumpach, then professor at the
T'ung-w6n Kuan, was riding out to the hills with one of
the students — the latter in charge of despatches for the
Minister. Passing along a hollow they were met by a
sudden rush of water that swept them away, and it was
with considerable difficulty they got to firm land. Von
Gumpach lost a box of valuable MSS., while the student
handed in a mass of pulp to the chief that, as he ex-
plained, had once been despatches. The Professor was
convinced that the Chinese Government were respon-

AT THE EILL8. 203

sible for his loss — how he could never clearly make out.
And he had a suspicion (see the BurUnghame Mission)
that the foreign Inspectorate of Customs had something
to do with raising that storm. On another occasion a
Minister was the victim, and remained four hours on
a sand-bank dum defluat amnis. He was rescued by a
search party led by a small villager. They found him
damp but undaunted, and brought him back in triumph
and administered whisky-toddy.

There is a graphic account of what might have been
a serious accident given in the first part of Margary's
Journey (pp. 6-10) : —

" About four miles from this B and G- were

overtaken by the rain, and in less than half an hour
their ponies were up to their knees in water. They
were above three hours getting across the last bit of
their ride, and it was by a miracle they escaped. There
was not a foot of sound ground the whole way, and they
had to flounder through mud up to their knees. The
roads, from their nature, were soon converted into rush-
ing torrents, strong enough to carry away oxen like
feathers. ... At last they reached a house, and though
standing up to their knees in water, the inmates would
not give them shelter, thinking they were robbers. A
half-idiot boy at last came out, and boldly offered to
take them to a good road and a ford. But at this ford
the boy and the horses were simply carried away by the

force of the current. . . . B and G continued

their way and pulled each other through three streams
up to their necks in water. When they reached a hut
below us here, they shouted for help, and were there for

204 WHEBE CSINE8ES DBIVE.

nearly an hour, shivering, exhausted and half-frantic,

before their cries were heard. G at one time threw

off everything, and plunged in to swim across, but was

pulled back by B in the nick of time. At last we

came to the rescue. . . . Guided by the shouts, we
went about 100 yards to what in the morning had been
a road, but was now a deep rushing mountain torrent,
and on the opposite side stood B — ■ — , shouting ' Brandy,

for heaven's sake, G is fainting ! ' I flew back, filled

a flask, and was in the torrent up to my waist before I

knew its force, but was stopped in time by B , to

whom I threw the flask. It was almost dark, and for
some time he could not find it ; but when he got hold

of it, he rushed with it into a little hut, where G

was almost, indeed as nearly as possible, done. Mean-
while we had torn our awning rope down, and I had
been trying for nearly five minutes to throw it across,

when S shouted out that the torrent was more

practicable above, where was, most fortunately, a

tree, to which our servants tied the rope. S

dashed nobly in with the other end, and, after a severe
struggle, gained the opposite bank. I stood up to
my waist, holding the rope next to him ; G — ■ —
then seized the rope, and he and S — — plunged in,
and in a moment were carried out in a semi-circle,

G completely immersed for a few moments.

While hauling away for very life I felt that one of
them must go, but they held on nobly, and we pulled

them in with a shout. S then repeated his feat,

and we brought B across in the same way, he all

the while rolling over and over like a log. Both of

AT TEE HILLS. 205

them were fearfully exhausted, and G we put to

bed . . ."

The temples suffered a great deal from these storms.
The Bertrams were staying one year at Ling-kuang Ssu,
when it began to rain. At first they were vexed, for a
contemplated picnic was spoilt. Then, after a day or two,
the rain steadily continuing, the cook came in to say that
proyisions were running short, it was impossible to get
to the villages to buy more ; might he be excused from
showing up an elaborate bill of fare ? In the course of
that afternoon the roof of the dining-room fell in, and
they dined in the bed-room. During the night they
were awakened by the rain that was trickhng through a
small but rapidly-spreading leak overhead, and thought
it prudent to retreat to an outhouse. They were dis-
covered there in the morning : Mrs. Bertram, with
umbrella and waterproof, balancing herself on some
bricks, while Bertram propped the roof up with his
alpenstock.. After that they returned to town and dry
rooms and comfort.

The summer storms did good in many ways, how-
ever. For one thing, they filled the water-courses and
wells. Before their coming it was difficult, especially
in the higher temples, to get fresh water ; indeed, this
was the one drawback to life at the hills. At Hsiang-
chieh Ssii, eight dollars a month was charged as
" water-money " by the priest, on the ground that
all water had to be fetched by coolies from a well haK
a mile off. For this, by-the-bye, the priest paid the
two wretched coolies two tiao^ one-sixth of a dollar,
apiece per month ; the rest he pocketed. On one

206 WRBBE CHINESES BEIVE.

occasion the water-money was paid directly to one of
the coolies. The priest declared it had not been paid,
and demanded it again. He was, of course, refused,
and told that the money was not his, but the coolie's.
Thereupon he tried to get it from the coolie, who,
seeing himself supported by the foreigners, refused to
give it up, and was at once sacked by the angry priest.
At Pao chu tung the charge, if I remember right, was
six dollars, the priest making, of course, a heavy
squeeze.

Ta pei ssii only contained rooms for four men, and
so, when there were more than four students in Peking,
they would overflow into the higher temples, Hsiang-
chieh Ssu and Pao chu tung. Hsiang-chieh Ssu was
very large, containing as it did several courts. The
series on the north side were formed by two rows of
guest-chambers, with a passage or gateway in the
middle of each. More strictly speaking, there was a
room on each side of a passage-way that ran through
the middle of the courts up to a t'iifig'r or pavilion at
the end. Behind the pavilion the rock rose steeply,
covered with ferns and trees. The courtyard on the
west was planted with pear and fig trees, flagged cause-
ways intersecting it. Here the two guest-rooms faced
one another, the principal shrine being at right-angles'
to both, and fronting south.

The guest-room in a Chinese temple is much the
same as the principal room in a Chinese inn. It is
perfectly bare, except for a table and a rough chair or
two ; it contains one, or perhaps two, k'angs (stove-
beds), and is paved with bricks — it is, in fact, as I have

AT THE KILLS. 207

said, very like a respectable scullery at home. Chinese
architects avoid variety, and all Chinese buildings may
be reduced to one simple form : an oblong, of which
three sides are of solid brick, and the fourth for three
or four feet of brick, for the rest of its height of lattice-
work and paper, the whole surmounted by a roof, of
which the ridged tiles imitate a layer of bamboos.
Divide the interior into three parts, and you have the
ideal Chinese house ; all larger houses are multiples
of this unit. It is as well to bear this tripartite division,
which is often quite impalpable, in mind when engaging,
or taking a lease of, rooms at a temple. Abbott took,
as he thought, six "rooms" in the ordinary sense.
When he came over with his family and any quantity
of furniture to take possession, he found that a small
out-house, which was to serve as kitchen and boys'
room, had been reckoned as three " rooms," which left
him only one compartment, some fifteen feet by ten, for
the sleeping and feeding accommodation of all his party.
The priest stuck to the letter of his bond, and Abbott
had to submit to be fleeced.

Everything that could make such rooms comfortable
had to be brought from town — mattress and bedding,
mosquito curtains, chairs, tea-tables, desks, often rugs
and carpets. In fact, it was a removal into unfurnished
lodgings. Knives and forks, crockery and glass, had to
come, too, -with, cook-boy and mafoo. I do not know
that it was much cooler at the hills than in town ;
indeed, it was probably hotter. But then the air was
clear of dust, you were quite away from the noise and
bustle and evil smells of the streets, and there were

208 WHEBE GHmHSES BBIVE.

plenty of walks to be taken on the hill-side by exercise
seekers. Mosquitoes and " sand-flies " (a wretched
little gnat, almost invisible) were harder to keep out,
but most of us rigged up in our rooms a large tent of
mosquito-netting and sat under it with the teacher.

For the teachers had to accompany us. Sometimes
they — perhaps not unnaturally — objected to leave the
seductions of town to live, as it were, in the desert. If
all of us went out there was no help for it : the teachers
had to go with us, or leave. But if two or three re-
mained in town, there was intriguing and excusing
enough, till all was settled by making the teachers
draw lots. Sung, however, came out with me quite
readily. He brought very little with him : a mat for
his bed and a mosquito-net with an elaborate door in
it, a basket filled with some edible bulbs, a tea-pot,
and two or three of the handleless Chinese cups. By
way of ornament he had a pair of scrolls.

These scrolls form no inconsiderable part of the
furniture of a Chinese parlour. Usually, indeed, the
room contains little else, except, perhaps, a few
cushionless chairs, a table, and an inverted flower-pot
or two. It was a common thing for our teachers to
write a pair of scrolls (a tul-tzd) for us, with some
moral sentiment taken from their books, each word in
the first clause carefully balanced in the second. Her-
ington thought most of these exceedingly feeble. They
were wanting in originality, and not at all applicable to
Student Interpreters. So with great pains and much
consulting of dictionaries he elaborated one that seemed
to meet the requirements of the case. He had it written

AT THE HILLS. 209

out in gold characters on a blue ground, and was very
proud of it. Being interpreted it ran :

My pay is not sufScient for my modest needs :

My debts prove too much for my impudent creditors.

In Peking you have to be careful about the senti-
ments of your scrolls. People who know all about it
come in and ask you, innocently enough, to explain, and
are unnecessarily gleeful when they have entrapped you
into some damaging admission. In the South it is
different. Sterling had a tui-tza painted on each side
of his fire-place, which was the admiration of his
friends. When he was asked what it meant, he used
to observe, in an off-hand sort of way, " That ? It 's
a moral saying of Confucius'." And they were satis-
fied. But one day Dr. Ernst called and found three
or four men there waiting for Sterling. They drew his
attention to the inscription, and asked him to translate
it. One of them added that it was taken from the works
of Confucius. Dr. Ernst peered at the tui-tza through
his spectacles, then at his interrogator, and said
solemnly : " Dat iss not so. Dis say,

' Coals iss seven toUar von ton ;
Charcoals iss nine cash von catty.' "

His friends are not nearly so enthusiastic about Sterling
now.

O'Hara and I took Pao chu tung for the season.
It is, as I said, quite a tiny temple, and the highest
of all. Here two terraces, one some fourteen feet above
the other, have been formed in a small guUey, and on
them a few temple buildings set up. These are ap-

14

210 WHERE CHINESE8 DRIVE.

preached by a broad level pathway on the side of the
hill, protected by a low stone wall, and entered through
a p'ai-lou of three arches. The temple consists of three
little courts. The first, the principal court, containing
the shrine, on the side nearest the hill ; a guest-room,
opposite the entrance ; and, overlooking the precipitous
descent into the valley, a t'ing'r or pavilion. A door
on the south leads into a smaller courtyard containing
another guest-chamber ; beyond this is a second door
opening on to the hill-side. On the right-hand, as you
enter the temple, a small gateway leads to the back of
the shrine and to a flight of rough stone steps. Behind
the shrine is the little cave that gives its name — Pao
chu tung, the Cave of Precious Pearls — to the temple.
The entrance is low and narrow, and the cave itself not
much to see. The roof is formed by a mass of con-
glomerate (" pudding-stone " with white pebbles, which,
I suppose, are the "pearls"), and the cave contains
a table or wooden platform, with a cross-legged Buddha
on it. Under the table was a pair of enormous shoes.
The flight of steps led up to the second platform, much
narrower than the other. Here again was a shrine in
the centre of a building, the two ends of which formed
small guest-chambers.

O'Hara and I tossed up for choice of rooms, O'Hara
taking the ones in the lower court, and I those in the
upper. We allotted the guest-chamber opposite the
entrance to Sung, who was delighted, and thought we
were improving in Chinese li (the rules of propriety) in
giving up the principal room to our teacher. It was so
blackened by smoke, and so frowsy, that we could not

AT THE HILLS. 211

live in it ; but it realised Sung's ideas of comfort. He
used occasionally to invite a town friend to come out for
a day or two, and they would shut themselves up inside
and jabber incessantly instead of walking about the hill.
Sung would, it is true, bring out a few maxims showing
that it was a good thing to take exercise in the country,
but he never thought of applying them to himself. A
Chinaman's dislike to fresh air is truly wonderful. You
will see the Chinese passengers on one of the coasting
steamers crowd into the lower deck like herrings in a
barrel, all ports and scuttles shut close. Presently, if
one of them has to come on deck, he will appear with
mouth and nostrils carefully covered up in his long
sleeve,- lest he should breathe the pure air and find it
disagree with him.

I had two rooms up-stairs, each about twelve feet by
ten, and separated from one another by a small joss-
house. One of these we reserved for casual guests,
making a small bed on the k'ang, and rigging up the
inevitable mosquito-curtain. I had very little more
furniture in my room : a table, a couple of benches, two
trunks, and a bathing-tub, made up most of it. There
was no fastening to the door, but I was never robbed —
never, I was going to say, even disturbed at night ; but
I had forgotten. One evening, about 8 or 9 o'clock,
we were startled by what seemed like the screams of
some creature in mortal agony. We extemporised
torches and went out to look, but found nothing. I
inquired of the old priest what it was ; he said a kind
of fox, but Sung and the boys were disposed to believe
that it was an evil spirit. Sung, indeed, told me to

14 *

212 WHERE CHINESES DRIVE.

keep a bright look-out till 12 o'clock; after that it
would be all right.

At Ta-pei Ssu they had a ghost— a veritable ghost,
they used to assure us. In fact, they were rather proud
of it — and I suppose the possession of a ghost does add
a certain amount of respectability to a place, even in
China. It used to walk at midnight (that of course)
along the upper terrace. It was not visible, or, at any
rate, it was never seen, but you could hear it pass with
a slow halting step, that made you think it foolishness
to get out of your comfortable bed to indulge a morbid
curiosity. And yet you had an uneasy feeling that the
door was not locked after all.

I was sitting in my room one morning, when I heard
something fall with a flop on to the pavement outside.
I seized a stick and ran out in time to kill the snake
before he got away. We were not so much troubled by
snakes, though, as they were at Hsiang-chieh Ssu. It
was there that Horton, just as he was getting into bed,
paused and looked about for a thick stick and his
revolver ; for, curled up comfortably between his
blankets, was a snake some six feet long. And Dr.
Bernard was arranging his botanical specimens one
day at a table near the window, when one of the
reptiles dropped down on to the book in front of him.
Dr. Bernard was equal to the occasion, and had him
bottled and preserved in spirits, and, I am told, properly
classified and labelled, before he had time to realise the
situation.

The rats, too, would seriously annoy us at times.
They used to steeple-chase inside the walls and along

AT THE HILLS. 213

the rafters, and keep it up all night. They really
seemed incapable of self-control. It did not disturb us
much, for we slept soundly at the hills : but what vexed
us was that, when they had made themselves hungry
by their violent exercise, they used to sit down and
make a good square meal out of the paper on the
ceiling. Some years ago a student thought something
must be done to restrain the unpleasantly high spirits
of his rats. So he purchased four owls and trained
them. They used to spend the day roosting symmetri-
cally on the posts of his bed, or in a row on his towel-
rack ; in the night they went on the war-path, until the
rats, disgusted at such conduct, decamped.

In the summer, when we were all out at the hills,
three or four separate messes would be formed, all
under the direction of the head cook, who issued the
rations to his subordinates. We had to be content
with plainer fare than in town ; fish, for instance, was
hard to get, for it had to be fetched from the city.
But we got plenty of fruit : apricots, peaches, grapes.
There was a vineyard among the hills a mile or two
away, where, at a charge of 3 tiao (say lid.) a head,
the greedy could feast all day on the long white grapes
or round purple ones ; or, if they preferred it, derange
their digestions with unlimited peaches — apricots were
despised.

One such peach-garden I remember well. Paley and
Lawson were the fortunate discoverers, and took toll of
its contents, the proprietor gazing open-mouthed the
while. Then Paley felt in his pockets, and found only
his cook's last bread-bill — unreceipted, but stamped

214 WHERE CHINE8ES DEIVE.

with various " chops." This he solemnly handed to
the rustic, who, through want of education or excess of
faith, took it for a tiao note of large amount, and in his
gratitude insisted on kotowing. When they came again
a week later, the rustic confided to them his doubts of
the credit of the bank which had issued that note ; said
he had taken it round to seven or eight villages to get
it changed, but the shopkeepers had declined to cash
it. Bread-bills do not pass current everywhere about
Peking.

It was here that Lawson and Kandolph used to come
when they were busy over the " Forty Exercises " in
their Chinese Course, and inform the bewildered rustic
that "stones are of different sizes," and that "there
are mountains full two hundred li high." At least,
that was the idea Randolph had in his mind, and he
said he did not see why the rustic should regard it as
at all funny. It distressed him so much that one day,
to soothe him, Paley said he would examine into the
matter. Then he found that Randolph, instead of
saying erh pai It {" two hundred li "), had been telling
the rustic that there were mountains whose height was
erh pai li ("two white pears"). And the bucolic
mind had failed to grasp the profound depth of the
remark.

O'Hara's boy and mine and our coolie slept in the
principal joss-house, and made themselves comfortable
enough on either side of the Buddha and under the
altar. They were not much impressed, it would seem,
by the sanctity of the place. In fact, after dinner, they
used to wash up the things on the altar and hang the

AT THE HILLS. 216

dish-cloths to dry on the head and arms of the image.
The old priest made no ohjection ; it did not interfere
with hia comfort or his duties ; for he lodged in the
gate-house, and he only performed one service a day, at
sunset. It consisted in banging a bell three times,
not very loudly, and in setting up and lighting three
incense-sticks in front of the Buddha.

At Pao chu tung we dined in the t'ing'r. This was
a small pavilion with the usual tent-like roof supported
on eight pillars plastered, and painted red. The floor
was paved, and a low wall ran along the edge of the
platform, here some fifteen feet above the slope of the
hill, and served at the same time as a seat. At that
height, nine hundred feet or so above the plain, the
view was magnificent. To the right a spur of the hills
ran down to the Hun river, six or seven miles off.
Below was the valley, covered with trees, through which
peeped the roofs of the lower temples. On the left more
hills stretching to Yu-ch'iian Shan and the grounds of
the Summer Palace. Eight in front of us lay the
Great Plain, losing itself in the sky. We could trace
the walls of Peking, and count every gate, and see the
yellow roofs of the palace buildings flashing in the sun.
On a clear day the pagoda of T'ungchow, twenty-five
• miles away, could be made out. And the Plain was
never the same, changing as it did with every cloud :
brown in winter, light green in spring, then through
yellow to brown again as autumn came and passed.
But I think it looked loveliest at night, when a great
moon was riding overhead and touched the lake at Wan
Shou Shan and the river of the Hun with silver light.

216 WHERE CHINESES DBIVE.

All was SO still that we could even hear the sound of
the gun fired . by the peasants keeping watch over their
crops, as a warning to pilferers, or the faint barking of
some village dog.

But it was no joke, the climb up the hill to see our
view, and especially after a long ride out from town.
We seldom went down to the plain, and our ponies
grew fat and lazy. I remember one evening, when
O'Hara and I went to dine at Ch'ang-ngan Ssii, the
farthest temple of all from ours ; for, as I said, it stood
at the foot of the hill, , at some distance from the rest.
We did not leave till after 11, by which time the moon
was rising. But all the valley was in deep shadow,
and we knew the mountain path by which we had to
climb would be darker still, so took a lantern. Half-
way up, in the gloomiest place of all, the lantern
flickered and went out, and we had to grope our way
under the trees until we passed Hsiang-chieh Ssu. Here
the hill-side is more open, and as the moon rose higher
we had plenty of light. Indeed, by the time we reached
Pao chu tung the moonbeams had had their effect on
O'Hara's brain, for, on my expression of thankfulness at
having got back at last, he said he was prepared to do
it all over again. In fact, he would bet me a dollar he
would go back to Ch'ang-ngan Ssii, hit the door with
his stick, and return. I saw him off (I thought it better
to humour him) and went to bed. I believe he got back
some time in the early morning. But on the next
occasion of our calling at Ch'ang-ngan Ssii they had a
thrilling story to tell us. A few hours after we left
them that night, the gate-keeper came running into the

AT THE HILLS. 217

courtyard in a great state of alarm. He had been roused
by a violent knocking at the gate, and on peeping
through had seen a great devil with long horns and a
face like yellow paper. Before he could say " Ai yah," it
turned and fled towards the mountain. Of course, they
said, it was a thief, and it was a lucky thing for him that
they had not seen him, as revolvers were kept handy in
that temple. O'Hara was not as keen on midnight
expeditions after that ; he said it was bad enough to be
told that you looked like a yellow-faced fiend, but to
be threatened with revolvers was too trying. Still, he
was so confident of his powers of endurance that we got
up a match for him with Herington : a race down hill
and back, go as you please. We were to be at the top
with long drinks for the survivor, should there be one.
Both seemed ready enough ; but somehow or other they
kept postponing it till the summer was over and we back
in town, disappointed and disgusted.

We were fortunate in having a moonlight night when
coming back from Ch'ang-ngan Ssu (except in so far as
O'Hara's head was affected by it) ; for a few years before
two men had left that temple after dinner, in the dark,
but with plenty of spirits for the journey, and contrived
to get half-way up the hill. Then one of them somehow
sat down, and thoughtlessly "rolled over into the gulley.
The other reflected that he ought to recover the body,
if only for the satisfaction of its relatives ; so he began
the descent, but presently felt sleepy, and considered
that, as the night was cold, it would keep till the
morning, made himself comfortable, and woke at day-
break. Opposite him sat the body, yawning and rubbing

218 WHERE OHINESES DRIVE.

— well, he had not an easy seat where he was. He had
brought up between a tree and a boulder, and thought
that now he was there he might as well stay there. At
least this, or something like it, was the account they
gave to those who considered their conduct in spending
the night in that guUey eccentric and quaint.

The days passed quietly enough at Pao chu tung.
We seemed above the world, shut out from it, as we
often were, by mist and cloud. Then it was pleasant
to be independent, to rise when we wished, and to dine
when we pleased, and as casually as we pleased. We
seldom went down the hill, but took our walks along
the top. Here, I was assured, grew plenty of mushrooms,
but as from early childhood I never could distinguish a
puff-ball or poisonous fungus from the edible toad-stool,
I preferred to let the cook procure them. Besides,
O'Hara objected to my supplying the larder, observing
that if the cook were to poison him he could cut the
cook's wages, but if I did he could not well do anything
else but haunt me ; and he thought that that was not a
gentlemanly thing for a ghost to do.

Half a mile or so to the north-east of the temple the
hills met in a watershed, known to us as The Gap.
This was the head of another valley at the back of our
hill, a lovely valley that stretched away down to the
Hun river, and was shut off from the plain by the moun-
tain spur I spoke of just now. On the other side of
this valley rose Mount Balluzec. For all the more
prominent mountains about here, that had no easily-
remembered Chinese names, have been christened after

AT THE HILLS. 219

the earlier Peking residents, or such of them as were
the first to cHmb them. Thus the hill that overhangs
Ch'ang-ngan Ssii is called Mount Bruce, and the moun-
tain across the river, dim in the distance, behind which
the sun sets, is known as Mount ConoUy. We of a
later generation were sometimes apt to confuse an un-
familiar name, and Mount Balluzec was '* Mount
Balzac " to us for many months.

I wish I could paint this valley for you as I saw it in
early summer or in autumn. A stone path ran down it,
and lost itself among the villages that were dotted about,
half hidden among the apricot trees. And there were
wildering little glens that led up into the hills, full of
white and scarlet lilies and yellow flowers of every
shape. Under the foot of Mount Balluzec was the
channel of a mountain stream. Here, when the rains
came, were deep cool rocky pools, where it was pleasant
to lie after a long stroll, and listen to the plash of water
among the stones. I used to think that valley the most
home-like of all Peking scenes. There was Uttle to
remind me of China, nothing except a dagoba in the
distance, or the twisted roof of some tiny temple peep-
ing through the trees. And the sunshine lingered there
long after it had left our eastward slope, and shone on
the little fields so painfully and carefully terraced, and
on the upland pastures where the cattle were already
being gathered for their homeward journey. I loved to
lie there lazily, till the last ray had faded from the
distant river, and it was time to be gone.

But there is one thing wanting in the Peking summer :
the birds never seem to sing there, or, if they do, cannot

220 WHERE GHINESES DRIVE.

be heard. Every tree is full of the wretched cicadas we
know as " scissor-grinders," and the miserable "wee-
wees." " Miserable," by-the-bye, is rather a good
epithet here : for the creature's note is a sort of pro-
longed wail. The scissor-grinders keep up their noise
incessantly, and it is possible to get used, or, at any
rate, resigned to it, but the wee-wees rile you at unex-
pected times. First one insect starts and wees for a
minute ; then another gets excited (I suppose the first is
a challenge), and tries to out-wee him. After five
minutes of this they pause to take breath, and things
are comparatively quiet. Then on the tree behind you
begins the ominous wee-wee-wee, ee, ee ! and you madly
fling the next thing to hand in that direction, and
retire.

But though the birds do not sing, they, or some of
them at least, contrive to make a noise. There are a
great many kites in Peking (feathered kites — there are
plenty of paper ones too), and to frighten these, so they
say, small light whistles are attached to the pigeons
there. A flock of these is not unmusical, though rather
bewildering at first : Paley vpas some months in the
north before he could get out of his head that it was
not the sound of a threshing-machine he heard.

We made many excursions among the hills, losing
ourselves sometimes in glens where a little stream
or low stone wall would bring back memories of home.
But I often longed for the sight of a hedge -row, with
its nut-trees and climbing blackberry-bushes, and I re-
member sitting for half an hour fascinated by an
engraving (in Harper, I think it was) called " The Edge

AT THE HILLS. 221

of the Field." Meanwhile the stone walls in these
glens were refreshing after the mud dykes of the plain.
Gordon and I settled that this country should be the
Derbyshire of North China, and O'Hara had a scheme
ready for a railway that was to run from Tientsin to
these hills, and bring invalids to a new Matlock. The
idea was not altogether original ; for the Peking and
T'ungchow missionaries had already decided that here
would be an excellent place for a sanatorium, if only
difficulties in the way of purchasing land could be got
over. The missionary pioneer is very useful, and does
a great deal of good : he is a thoroughly trustworthy
guide to places where one can live comfortably and
pleasantly. And in the interests of science he will
consent to live there himself.

Those unfortunate people whom business obliged to
spend the summer in town would often ride out on
Sunday to see us, or would come and stay with us from
Saturday till Monday. Very little preparation was re-
quired, beyond rigging up a hammock or getting ready
a bed on an unoccupied k'ang. Then we would ride
over to Wan shou Shan, sending a mafoo on before with
our tiffin. Just where the stream leaves the lake is the
Hunchback Bridge, and here the water is deep and clear.
And on each side under the bridge is a ledge of stone,
where we are secure from the inquisitive natives, or, at
any rate, from contact with them. These all assemble
on the other side, and watch our proceedings as we
strip and plunge in. One of them can dive, too, but he
does not care to do it for mere amusement. Chuck in

222 WHERE CHINESE8 BBIVE.

a cash, or, better still, a five-cent piece, and he will be
after it, and secure it before it reaches the bottom.
When Grordon and I had finished the bottle of sherry
we brought with us, on one occasion when we visited
the place, we amused ourselves in this way for a little
time, then mounted to ride back. I suppose watching
the rustic dive had excited us, but anyhow we raced
home between the fields of kao-liang ventre a terre.
That was when T discovered that my lazy pony could
go, for he came in first. I had very little to do with it,
and was as surprised as Gordon.

Wan shou Shan had other attractions, for there was
good snipe-shooting among the paddy fields in the season.
Small Chinese acted as retrievers, and were quite proud
of a good bag. There was some danger, though, in the
sport sometimes : as once when Eandolph fired at a bird
flying low, and from among the rice on which his shot
was rattling three heads popped up to see what was the
matter. They belonged to villagers who were thinning
the crops, and, being above their knees in mud and
water, were quite invisible from where Eandolph stood.
On another occasion, Eandolph was attacked by a mad-
man, who laid hold of his gun and tried to wrest it from
him. It was loaded, and Eandolph feared to let go ; so
held on, and presently got the gun away. The madman,
however, closed with him, intending to throw him into
the paddy, apparently. Eandolph was loath to hurt
him, but, seeing nothing for it, struck out and knocked
him head over heels into the mud. Then it was that
Eandolph at last satisfied himself on a point about which
he had long been anxious to obtain trustworthy evidence

AT THE HILLS. 223

— the effect on a Chinaman of a knock-down blow be-
tween the eyes . . . The madman picked himself up,
composedly, and came on again with equal enthusiasm.
Nor was it till Randolph had got him down, threatening
punishment, that the surrounding rustics interfered. So
far they had looked on cheerfully, in the hope, it would
seem, of seeing a foreigner mauled by an irresponsible
lunatic.

Bertram was persuaded once to accompany Horton on
a three days' trip to the hills — a shooting trip it was to
be. Bertram had no gun, but he thought it would pro-
bably be all right. The morning after their arrival they
set out together " snipe-hunting," as the Americans
have it, in the direction of Wan shou Shan. Horton
carried the gun, but, for fear of possible accidents, left
it for the present unloaded. Bertram had a field-glass.
After some time Bertram caught sight of a bird in a
tree, which Horton, on examining through the field-
glass, pronounced to be a snipe. Then they sat down
to load the gun. Horton produced out of one pocket
a piece of newspaper ; out of another a dozen pellets
of shot. The newspaper contained powder, or rather
had contained it — it had nearly all leaked out, some-
how, and there was only enough for one charge left.
They rammed this home, and were preparing to stalk
the snipe, when it occurred to Horton to offer Bertram
the chance of shooting it. Bertram could not think of
it ; privately, would much rather not. Then they tossed
up, and Bertram manipulated the dollar — ^Horton had
to shoot. He made his approaches, and, to Bertram's
joy and surprise, the gun went off without hurting any-

224 WREBE GRINESES DRIVE.

one but the bird. They carried that home and showed
it to Eandolph. , . . Bertram says that it was rather
mean of Randolph, since he could not deny that the
bird had been shot, to declare that it was after all only
an ordinary, a very ordinary, magpie.

In the hills behind the Summer Palace is the Imperial
Hunting Ground, where some years ago a deer was shot,
greatly to the distress of the Chinese Government and
Baron von Gumpach. Since then it has not been
possible to commit a like trespass ; but Ashton, who is
an able sportsman, noticed that the wall was broken in
places, and thought it not improbable that the deer
sometimes strayed — so promised a neighbouring rustic
a dollar if he would give him notice. A few days later,
as Ashton was sitting at breakfast in his temple, the
rustic rushed in in an excited sort of way, and exclaimed
that there was a deer outside the wall. Ashton took
down his rifle and followed. Presently he saw the deer,
browsing under a tree, and signed to the rustic to lie
close while he carefully stalked it. Just as he was get-
ting within range he slipped on a stone. The deer,
though evidently startled by the noise, did not move off,
and Ashton's suspicions were aroused. On coming
nearer, he found that the unfortunate beast had been
carefully tied by the leg to the tree. The rustic was dis-
gusted when Ashton refused to shoot, explaining that
he had been at great pains to convey that deer out of
the park. But there was really no accounting for the
eccentricities of foreigners.

There used to be little difficulty in getting into Wan
shou Shan, but quite lately the gate-keepers and others

AT THE KILLS. 225

there have become vicious. Their last victims were
two men who unfortunately knew no Chinese, and these
they contrived to shut up inside the grounds somewhere,
demanding a ransom of ten dollars. The men held out
for a few hours, then sadly gave way.

It is not often that the natives give any trouble at
all, and, when they do, it is almost invariably to people
who do not understand them or their speech. This was
not the case, however, with the students who, some few
years ago now, went on an expedition to Po-'hua Shan
(the " Hill of a Hundred Flowers")- It so happened
that it was at the time of a pilgrimage to the temples
there, and the foreigners could only get a very small
room to spend the night in. Scarcely sufficient though
it was for their own accommodation, presently some
pilgrims came and insisted on sharing it with them.
They were naturally turned out, and all was quiet that
night. The next morning, however, a crowd of natives
assembled in the yard, and began to throw bricks
through the window. The students had with them
two shot-guns and a revolver. These they fired over
the heads of the rioters, with no effect. It would have
been madness to fire into the crowd, for the first shot
that told would mean their own death. The bricks,
meanwhile, had broken the window into splinters, and
were coming in faster, so they determined to make a
sortie. They managed to get through, and after that
adjourned to a neighbouring wood, and stayed there
till the people grew calmer. When that happened
they returned, and both sides proceeded to count the
wounded. One of the foreigners had been banged on

X5

226 WEEBE GHINESE8 DBIVE.

the head with a club, and a small native hit by a spent
bullet as he lay on the side of the hill. In the upshot
a great number of the rioters were arrested and pun-
ished, while an opportune dollar healed the youngster's
bruise.

Silver in all such cases is an efficient plaster for
wound and tongue. Ashton once by accident lodged
some pellets of snipe-shot in the cheek of a Chinaman.
The man, with that readiness for seizing a small
advantage which is a sixth sense in his countrymen
(or, rather, which makes up for the non-existent sense
of smell), at once dropped down dead. Ashton stirred
him up with the butt-end of his gun, and sent him with
a chit to the doctor. The doctor extracted the shot
with a pen-knife, and, as requested in Ashton's note,
gave the man a dollar. A week later the rustic came
round again, the wounds on his face very much inflamed,
and asked for additional compensation ; he would take
three dollars. The doctor thought it strange ; the
scars were healing when he last saw the man — quite
beautifully, in fact. But before he reported it as an
interesting case to the Lancet he made careful examina-
tion. Then he found that the rustic had been supplied
by a friend with some irritating mixture, on condition
of sharing the proceeds. As the doctor was observed
to eject the man with a certain amount of emphasis,
the speculation was, there is reason to believe, a losing
one.

The Temples were a convenient starting-point for
many excursions — to Miao-feng Shan, up the valley of
the Hun to Mount ConoUy, to Fang Shan (where the

AT THE HILLS. 227

great cave is that runs no one knows how far under-
ground, for a subterranean river stops the way), or to
the Nankow Pass. When Trenton was staying with
me, he and I strolled off one day in the direction of
Yii-ch'iian Shan, and the encampment of the Peking
Field Force. When we got somewhere near the place
we turned into a small tea-house, and found an itine-
rant story-teller, with his lute, and a circle of admiring
villagers. He broke off his story when he saw us, and
though Trenton begged him to go on, it was evident
that he considered himself cut out by the new attrac-
tion — two genuine foreigners, ready to drink tea, and
smoke, and answer questions. The villagers insisted on
our taking pulls at their hubble-bubbles, brass water-
pipes, with a bowl the size of a small thimble, and
filled with a substance in taste and appearance more
like powdered straw than tobacco. Then they began
to tell us about themselves. This man had been in
Tientsin, and had gone through the foreign drill ; why,
see what a lot of English he knows ! Then the man is
trotted out, and jerking his arm up and down, says,
" Show-ter Aah-mi-sse ! Kwei-k Mdh-tch ! Fai ! "
and looks round well pleased, while a comrade trans-
lates. They are all Bannermen, they say, and should
be posted in the foreign manoeuvres. They possibly
are.

On some of the mountains ling yang, a small species
of deer, are to be found, on which the natives set great
store ; for the horns, heart and blood are all used by
them as medicine, in that curious pharmacopoeia of
theirs, and it is very difficult, after shooting the beast,

16 *

228 WHEBU GHINESE8 . BRIVE.

to preserve any memento of him from thievish boys and
coolies. Besides the rarer ling yang there are pheasants
and hares on the hills. Occasionally a wolf is seen.
Fawcett - met one on a retired path, he says, vrhen he
was going down to Ch'ang-ngan Ssii one day. After
staring at one another for a few seconds, they each
went back the way they had come, Fawcett taking a
longer road to the temple. When he got there he found
his wolf quarrelling with another temple- dog over a
bone, and a small boy flogging them both. It reminded
him, he said, of a certain consul (magna componere), who
was walking out one day in the country when he was
accosted by a ferocious bull. Dignity required that he
should take no notice of the bull ; prudence said, Climb
the next tree. Prudence prevailed, and the consul
remained a prisoner till a little girl came out with a
piece of string and led that cow home to be milked.
This is Fawcett's story. I will not vouch for it; I
believe he invented it to cover his own retreat.

There are all sorts of picnicatable places within easy
distance of the temples, and the opportunities afforded
us were not neglected. Wan shou Shan was a common
meeting-place for people out at the hills and their
friends in town ; and so Kirkman was invited to join
the Bertrams at their picnic there. The spirit in Kirk-
man was willing, but the flesh — there was the rub. He
touched sixteen stone the last time he was weighed,
and that was two years ago. His boy assured him,
though, that a Peking mule could stand anything ; so a
mule was brought. But as soon as Kirkman was in
the saddle, the mule, as he put it, " collapsed Uke an

AT THE SILLS. 229

umbrella in a high wind." A cart Kirkman refused to
squeeze into, a waggon he thought undignified. Finally
someone suggested a camel. Kirkman jumped at the
suggestion (metaphorically jumped, that is), and mounted
his camel at the friend's door, dressed in his summer
suit of white drill. He had scarcely left his gate when
he found he had forgotten something, and dismounted.
His friend greeted him much as the blessed gods did
Hephaestus when he acted as cup-bearer, and he dis-
covered, to his dismay and horror, that the camel had
only too recently been engaged in the coal trade, and —
but the rest is too awful.

Pao chu tung was, fortunately for us, on the list of
places visitable, and we had the pleasure of persuading
some of the dwellers on the plain and their visitors to
come and see our view. Our small household could not
provide sufficiently for all the expected guests, and there
was a running up and down hill of coolies bearing
baskets of crockery and cutlery and glass, and a bor-
rowing of boys and cooks. On one occasion I had the
honour of entertaining Ch'ung Hou, the late Ambas-
sador to Eussia. He was staying in the neighbourhood,
at one of the temples, and had come up to Pao chu tung
to see the place. I did not know who he was, and only
noticed a mild-faced old gentleman, who bowed to me
as I passed, and three or four younger men talking with
him. When I came back from my walk, my boy told
me who it was, and said that the ta jm, on hearing I
had rented the temple, had wished to apologise for
intruding on me (some polite phrase, I expect, that the
boy had expanded a little). I answered that I hoped

230 WHERE OHINESES DBIVE.

he would come again when I could receive him more
fitly, and I wrote a little note to say so. Presently
came an answer in the ex-Minister's handwriting, thank-
ing me, and promising to come. About a week later
my boy ran in to say that Ch'ung Hou and some of his
family had arrived at one of the lower temples, and, as
it was a fine day, would probably visit Pao chu tung.
And so he had made his preparations, and laid out a
table in the t'ing'r, with flowers and fruit, crackers and
bon-bons, tea, sherry, claret, and cigars and cigarettes.
In a short time Ch'ung Hou did arrive, with his sister,
and two young married ladies, and their attendants.
He introduced me to his sister, and began to talk very
pleasantly, about London and America, and the scenery
here and there, his sister occasionally adding some re-
mark, until I thought the orthodox quarter of an hour
exhausted (not being quite sure of the Chinese etiquette,
I regarded myself as paying a call on them), so made
my adieus and left them. My boy told me that the
young ladies took away with them the crackers and
bon-bons that remained, and asked if there were no
more ? Ch'ung Hou remonstrated, but the boy said it
was all right ; he was sure I should be sorry that so few
had been provided. The boy himself was evidently
well satisfied — I expect his douceur was beyond his
merits.

On another occasion the old Duke Liang, from whom
the British Legation is rented, visited the temple.
Indeed, Pao chu tung was much afiected by Peking
notables engaged in sight-seeing among the hills. My
boy grew very particular, and one day, when I asked

AT THE HILLS. 231

him who it was that had just left the temple, said in
an off-hand sort of way, " That one ? He 's only a
Censor ! " I like my boy to have an honest pride in
himself — and his master — but I thought this sort of
thing required checking, and resolved to move back into
town at an early opportunity.

Gordon was a most hospitable man, and had a birth-
day each summer, which he invited us to celebrate at
Ta-pei Ssii. Then night would be made vocal, and the
Russian part-songs at Lung-wang T'ang yielded to
superior energy, and the peaceful slumbers of the
visitors at San-shan An'r turned into a confused con-
sciousness of — let us say, seeing that we were the
authors of it — melody, somewhere about. The worst
of it was that the dogs would regard the proceeding as
a sort of challenge, and start an opposition that did not
appeal to the better feelings of our nature. Sometimes
we made a raid, and a dog would be shot and carefully
deposited in a guUey and covered up with rocks. Then
followed days of duplicity and pretended sympathy with
the priests' loss, that all went down to the score against
the next dog.

After the dogs, the greatest nuisance were the
beggars. There was one fellow who presented him-
self at the back gate of Hsiang-chieh Ssii, and began
to howl, and kept on howling till Randolph, who was
busy on the Tzu-Srh Chi, got up and expostulated.
Expostulations proving vain, recourse was had to
unripe apricots. Then, as the howling went on with
unabated vigour, small rocks came into play. The
beggar seemed to prefer them to the apricots. At

232 WHERE CHINE8E8 DRIVE.

last a gun was taken down and filled with No. 2, and
a message sent by the boy to say that ' ' the ta lao yeh
was grieved, but there really seemed no other way open
to him. Yet, being humane, he . thought that if the
hua-izd [beggar] would only turn round while he was
being fired at, he might take it easier." The hua-tza
paused in his howling, and, looking up, saw the gun
pointed at his legs. He reflected a Uttle, then slipped
nimbly behind a door and was still.

Randolph was a good man to go to when you wanted
a charge of shot put through anything. Gordon and
I were calling on him one day when he said, anent
Herington's reading, " He has been pottering over
Williams' Middle Kingdom this last week. He came to
me yesterday, while I was sitting- in a long chair, shoot-
ing sparrows for supper. ' Shooting at,' you say ?
Gordon, just hand me a rock, or something, will you ?
Thanks. Well, when I was shooting sparrows, with a
saloon-pistol " — here Randolph fingered his rock, but,
as no one interrupted, put it down regretfully and went
on—" Herington came along, holding up the Middle
Kingdom by its cover. He said, ' For Heaven's sake,
Randolph, put a bullet through this awful book ! ' And
so we hung it up carefully and had pot-shots at the
Portrait of Abeel." Gordon here remarked that he did
not remember that picture. " No ? " said Randolph ;
" you can't have read much, then. Why, it 's the
Frontispiece." " Oh," answered Gordon, naively, " I
never got beyond the cover."

It is a pity to spoil your shooting for want of
practice — a conclusion Herr Dronsdorf came to when

AT THE HILLS. 233

he missed a thief who was breaking out of his temple
with his watch and one or two other things ; so Herr
Dronsdorf got the carpenter to make a rough wooden
figure, and put it up in a corner of the room. The boy
thought it was a joss, and got Dronsdorf some incense-
sticks to burn to it. He was fixing these up the next
morning, when, to his amazement, Dronsdorf told him
from the bed to get out of the way, and then emptied
his revolver into the "joss" — or the wall in the imme-
diate neighbourhood.

We used to take our turns, week by week, in going
into town for office-work ; and, indeed, though life at
the hills was delightful enough, it was the least bit
monotonous, if the truth must be told. Some of us
were so decidedly of .this opinion that when they got
back to town they stayed there. This was not Paley's
view, however. The first year he was up he remained
at the Hills till well into November, and persuaded
Fawcett to keep him company. He says it was alto-
gether delightful, and quite different from the summer-
time. They used to ride out every morning from 10 to
1, jumping banks and ditches, or chatting with the
peasants. But the old priest at Ta-pei Ssii, where
they were staying, was not sympathetic, and was
anxious, it seemed, to have his temple to himself
again. He wrote to the then President of the Mess a
long and earnest letter, urging him to use his influence
with them to advise them to go into town. " There
were indigent vagabonds on the hills," he said, " who
would not scruple to enter the temple rooms, and rob,

234 WHEBE GHINESE8 DRIVE.

and perhaps wound and ill-treat them." The President
made a careful abstract of this letter, and sent it on to
Paley. Paley was not disposed to take the priest's hint
and depart ; but thought perhaps there might be some-
thing in what he said about the prevalence of robbers.
Anyway, it was as well to take precautions ; so he sent
for his boy and began to tell him not to enter the rooms
at night without calling out, for he might get shot by
mistake. Paley says, " I suppose my Chinese wasn't
perfect, as he didn't seem to take it in exactly ; so I
illustrated it. One door of my room— there are two —
was shut, and I took my revolver and put a bullet
through it. From the way in which the boy disappeared
out of the other door, I 'm afraid he didn't catch my
idea, after all. He seems to have thought I meant to
put the bullet through him."

Fawcett was not so enthusiastic about November at
the Hills. He came away presently, and reported that
Paley was spending all but two hours in the middle of
the day in bed, under a pile of blankets, sheep-skins,
Mongolian rugs, and any odds and ends of clothing
that he could not find room for on his person. It was
the only way to keep warm. For himself, he preferred
a fire — there were no stoves in the temples — so had left
him and come back to the comforts of town.

235

VII. SuMMEB IN Town.

SuMMEE in Town had not as many attractions as winter,
perhaps, but there was tennis on the Legation lawn,
and in the play-ground of the Customs' Students, and
there were garden-parties at the American Legation,
and the Inspectorate-General of Customs. It seems to
be impossible to get good turf in Peking ; what grass
there is grows in coarse tufts, that no amount of
mowing or rolling will keep short ; and it wears out
at once, so that a lawn has to be relaid every year.
Besides all these disadvantages, our courts in the Lega-
tion lay east and west, and, as it was too hot to play
until an hour before sunset, one of the players, having
the sun in his eyes, was perforce quite in the dark as to
everything else. It was useful in handicapping, though.
The Customs' Students, accepting the fact that grass
would not grow, went in for an unpretending mud court.
For this the clay of which the Chinese make their
threshing-floors serves admirably. The "play-ground"
where this tennis-court was laid down was in the Kou-
lan Hii-t'ung, a little below the Customs' Quarters, and
on the other side of the lane. It was fairly large, and
perfectly bare, except for one tree and four stone seats.

236 WHERE GHINESES DRIVE.

A set of quoits and a stone ball for putting the weight
were the other attractions of the place. Play went on
every evening, and by way of refreshment boys would
appear bearing trays loaded with bottled beer, long
drinks, tea, and a huge pile of buttered toast.

The western windows of the Library above our own
mess-room looked out into the " Carriage Park." The
wall surrounding this is, as I have said, some thirtaen
feet high, with a covering of slippery yellow tiles, six
or seven feet broad. Formerly a small balcony was
stretched along the space between this wall and the
Library; but it fell in one day, and has never been
restored. However, it was easy enough to get from
one of the windows to the top of the wall, and then, by
lowering a ladder, descend into the park. It was a most
disreputable ladder ; there were only three rungs re-
maining — the rest were supplied by pieces of clothes-
line, or left to be imagined. When Paley stayed in
town one summer, he used to take Gyp for a run in the
Park every afternoon. Then the gardener hung on to
the top of the ladder to keep it steady, while Paley slowly
descended, the unhappy pup slung like a coal-sack from
his shoulders.

Some years ago the students adopted more heroic
methods of entering the Park. Setting an unreason-
ably high value on their necks, they declined to go
down a ladder, but went to work to tunnel the wall.
This done, they arched the opening in a tasteful and
scientific manner, and fixed up a wicket-gate. Their
industry and ingenuity were greatly admired by the
officials in charge of the Park; but, as they repre-

SUMMEB IN TOWN. 237

sented to the then Minister, such a mode of entry into
Imperial property was not common in China. Their
prejudices were respected, and the entrance ordered to
be bricked up.

Formerly, they say, a state elephant used to be kept
in one of the buildings here, and was led out on grand
occasions, secured by a hundred ropes, with two men
to each, while the natives crowded in to see the sight.
In our time the park was deserted, and was very seldom
entered by officials. Sterling was fond of roaming about .
in it when he was a student, and liked to climb the
trees and meditate on things. He was perched on a
bough one day when the officials inspecting the place
came in, and stared at him in amazement for a bit,
then began to entreat him to come down. They said
it was not that they objected to his being there so
much, only they feared he would fall and hurt his
jewelled person, and that would cause them pain and
grief. So Sterling, not liking to do that, came
down.

We hunted out some old bats one summer, and tried
to play cricket in the park. There were several draw-
backs. For one thing, the bats were very old — we
computed their age at between fifteen and twenty years
— and used to split at the first drive. Then the grass
was so long, or the place -so strewn with broken tiles
and bricks, or overgrown with briars, that it was not
easy to find a pitch. And fielding was difficult because
of the number of trees about. But we managed to get
up some matches occasionally — only four or five a side,
though, for it would have been hard to find twenty-two

238 WHERE GHINE8ES DRIVE.

young men in Peking, and harder still to persuade them
to play cricket with the thermometer at 96°. We
managed it all right by having a single wicket, and
making everybody field. The lawn-tennis net, more-
over, did duty as a long-stop, and boundaries were well
defined.

The streets of Peking offered as little inducement to
walking exercise in summer as in winter. Those who
went in for that took it by preference on the city wall.
At intervals along the line of the wall were inclined
roadways or ramps leading to the top. (When our
troops held the An-ting Gate in 1860, the guns
they planted to command the approach from the Te-
sh^ng M^n were dragged up along one of these.) They
are closed by doors of open wood-work, and the side
wall further protected by bundles of brambles. A guard-
house is built near the entrance. Until quite recently
the guards at the ramp near the Skating Rink reaped a
small harvest of cash and silver from unlocking their
gate to foreigners ; but the authorities having discovered
that kegs of spirits had been smuggled over the wall to
avoid the octroi, strict orders were given to close all the
ramps but those near the city gates, and boards bearing
the proclamation to this effect were fastened on the
doors. After that we had to go to the Ha-ta M^n
before we could get on to the wall. Here a very civil
but very ragged "policeman" (it really seems absurd
to dignify him by such a name ; but I would not be out
of fashion and cease to talk of Chinese " viceroys,"
" admirals," " colonels," and the rest of it) will open

SUMMER IN TOWN. 239

the door and take his pour-boire as demurely as a railway
porter.

Ascending the ramp, you come at once to the huge
erection over the gate, so familiar in illustrations of
Peking. On one side of it are pasted some notices
issued from the Office of Grendarmerie. One of these
states that complaints had heen received from the
German Legation of the practice of stone-throwing
from and on to the wall, which one of the members of
that Legation had noticed (and presumably suffered
from). Others refer to the smuggling of wine or opium,
or the stealing of rice from the granaries. Beyond the
gate-house is a small brick hut, at the door an old man
smoking his long wooden pipe, with its ridiculous little
bowl ; a wretched, half-starved puppy playing listlessly
at his feet. This hut is one of a series erected, they
say, for the troops who were to have manned the wall
when the Allies marched on Peking. Many of them
are in ruins, but here and there some more tasteful
sentry has taken up a few bricks and formed small beds,
in which hollyhocks and chrysanthemums are planted.
The buttress nearest the ramp at the back of the
German Legation, and the wall for some twenty yards
on the east of the hut there, are full of young trees,
which, though self-planted, are apparently carefully
tended. As a rule the wall is quite neglected, and is
overgrown with briars and young jejube bushes, through
which a narrow path has been trodden.

Our usual walk along the wall was eastward to the
south-east corner of the city, then as far as we had
time or energy northwards. On the sandy tract between

240 WHERE CHINE8E8 DBIVE.

the south wall and the moat a fair is held in the spring,
and a good view of what goes on can he had from the
wall. I noticed a number of refreshment-booths, and an
enclosure in which wrestling and feats of strength and
legerdemain were going on. But apparently the greatest
excitement was caused by the horse-and-cart races. I
could not quite make out whether these were intended for
time races, or a kind of bumping race, as it were. The
ponies would start off one by one at short intervals, and,
with a great jingling of bells on their part and much
shouting from the spectators, would gallop a few
hundred yards and then come back again. The carts
did much the same. I asked Sung about it, and he
said that formerly there were breast races in the foreign
fashion ; but a few years since a couple of horse-racing
yellow-girdles disputed over the behaviour of their
respective jockeys, and from this turf quarrel a feud
arose, and a free fight between their followers took
place on the Beggar's Bridge, before the Ch'ien M^n ;
and so the Government put down horse-racing abreast.

Not very far from the south-east corner of the city,
on a square tower built out from the wall, is the cele-
brated Observatory. The proper approach to it is from
the interior of the city, and it would not be easy to get
on to it from the wall — for it is some twelve feet higher
— if it were not for a slanting beam supporting some
kind of flag-staff at one corner. This beam is two or
three feet from the side of the tower, and the bricks
near it have been so knocked about by climbers that it
is not difficult to scramble up to a small window, and
thence to creep on to the parapet. But, after all, there

SUMMER IN TOWN. 241

is no need to get up in this way, for there is little or no
objection made to entering in the legitimate manner —
so long as a cumshaw is to hand. The various instru-
ments, cast in bronze by the Jesuits of the seventeenth
century, are in wonderful preservation still, thanks to
the climate — not, be sure, to any care that ofiBcials have
taken of them. But these have been described over and
over again, and so I will say nothing about them.
Besides, I do not know an astrolabe from a — well, say
from an " azimuth " ; and I have a faint uneasy feeling
that this last is not an instrument, whatever the first
may be.

Looking down into the city in summer, very little
was to be seen of the houses, so thickly are trees
planted about them. Indeed, Peking might seem to be
a green wood surrounded by a high wall, if it were not
for the long line of Imperial buildings running from the
Ch'ien M^n to Ching Shan. The latter is " Prospect
Hill," the artificial mound (it is said to be formed
of coal) in the middle of the city, on which the last
Emperor of the Ming hanged himself to escape capture
by the rebel Li Tzii-ch'eng. Just before sunset the
view from the top of one of the ramps over the city to
the Western Hills is very beautiful. Nothing can be
seen of the squalor and dirt of the streets and houses.
Everything is hidden by the green fohage of the trees
and the golden light of the setting sun, while all the
picturesque outlines of the gate-house and the yellow-
roofed palace buildings are clear against the sky, and
in the distance are the hills, a purple haze.

Close to the East Wicket (the Tung pien M^n) the

16

242 WHEBE OHINESES DRIVE.

canal from T'ung-chow approaches the city, and here,
when the grain-junks arrive, is a busy scene. Chinese
ingenuity has at this point thrown a bridge over the
canal too low to let the barges pass (besides, I believe
there is a difference of level hereabouts), so that every
bag of rice has to be carried by coolies from a barge on
one side of the bridge to a barge on the other, the
granaries being a little way to the north, near the
Ch'i-hua Gate. From the wall, where I have often sat
to watch them, the coolies with their loads look very
like a disturbed ants' nest, where the ants scurry about
with their white sacks (are they grains or larvae ?) as
big nearly as themselves.

I have no doubt that a philosopher would get much
profit from a walk on the Peking wall. He would feel
himself in his proper place, looking down upon the
toiling crowds, and could moralise undisturbed, until
one of the ubiquitous dogs became noisily suspicious.
When Keary wanted to philosophise on the wall, he
took his bull-dog with him. The bull-dog was cunning,
and watched his opportunity to shut off his foe in a
buttress. Then he made his approaches, and the other
dog retreated to the parapet. Finally, seeing nothing
for it, the enemy took refuge in a gargoyle, when the
bull-dog dexterously butted him through — a drop of
fifty feet or so — and came back to Keary with the self-
satisfied air of one who had done his duty by dog-kind.

It was rather a long tramp right round the city on
the wall, but some of us would do it, I suppose as the
correct thing. Jackson, I know, declares that he makes
a point of walking round every walled city he may be

SUMMEB IN TOWN. 243

stationed at or near. He contracted the habit, he says,
from the book of Joshua. Formerly the mania was
utihsed, and best times put on record and betted
against. As when Ellerby undertook to beat the best
time by a quarter of an hour, and came within twenty
yards of the finish with ten minutes to spare, eight of
which he spent in sitting down and crowing over the
discomfiture of the other side. When he thought he
might as^well win his wager he tried to stand up, but
found he had taken cramp, and there was no chance of
moving for half an hour or so. He describes their joy
as most improper and unfeeling.

Jackson and some friends of his determined to try to
see the late Emperor returning in the early morning
from the Temple of Heaven. They managed to get on
the wall near the Ch'ien Men, through which the pro-
cession was^to pass, unobserved. Then, seeing sentries
posted, they were obliged to crouch down behind a
guard-house. It was a frightfully cold night, and they
shivered and shook till nature could stand it no longer,
and they came out of their hiding-place and were
politely requested to withdraw. Fortunately, just at
this time the procession passed, and, having caught a
ghmpse of H. I. M. — all they wanted — they were only
too glad to be ushered out, and get back to a place
where early rising was not de rigueur.

The walls of the Chinese are much lower than those
of the Tartar city, and, as the ramps are less strictly
guarded, it is possible to ride up to the top. But they
were seldom mounted at all, except by those who wished
to see the Temple of Heaven without the trouble of

16 *

244 WSEBE GHINESES BBIVE.

scaling it. The wall of the Northern City, on the other
handj is fast becoming a fashionable promenade for
Europeans, especially on Sunday afternoons. It was
suggested that we should ask for a key and formal per-
mission ; but there was so little likelihood of either being
given, and it was so easy to dispense with them both,
that the suggestion went no farther.

In the first part of Margary's Journey is an account
of Peking Sundays as they were to the students of his
day. It may serve, with modifications, for an account
of ours. There was morning service at the Legation
Chapel at 11 o'clock, and in the evening a Meeting at
the house of one of the English or American mis-
sionaries. This was popularly known as " Conventicle."

Frere was speaking about his student days, and other
things. " I came into my room one Sunday afternoon," he
said, "just before dinner, and found Lovell and Jackson
with my last bottle of Klimmel. Jackson was proposing
toasts, and Lovell drinking them— very solemnly, as
his wont was. When I entered they proposed mine,
and handed me the bottle to drink it. It was empty —
insult added to injury, wasn't it ? However, I forgave
them and saw them safe into the Mess-room. I felt
they needed it. At dinner Jackson was very talkative,
but Lovell sat calm and solemn, gazing at me through
the Chinese spectacles he insisted on wearing — ^things
four inches or so in diameter, and more like bull's-eye
lanterns than rational spectacles. I began to think that
all would be well, in spite of the Kiimmel, when some
rash man said he was going to Conventicle. Then
Lovell rose and declared his intention of going too.

SUMMUB IN TO WN. 246

This was strange and portentous — Lovell had never
done anything of the sort before. We tried to dis-
courage him ; but he got obstinate and ordered a cart.
We let him get inside, for there was no help for it ; but
we skilfully hung on behind, so as to give him time to
change his mind. Do you know, that cart took twenty
minutes getting from the Quarters to the Legation Gate,
and all the time Lovell sat like a Buddha, and appa-
rently thought he was going ahead. When he got out-
side the gate, we gave up, and took carts on our own
account and followed.

" They had quite a flourishing congregation at Con-
venticle that night ; it was held in Dr. Joseph's
drawing-room. We let Lovell go in first. He walked
straight in, to a chair right in front of everybody, and
opposite the extemporised pulpit. I do not know whom
it was meant for — it was a light cane chair with an open
back — anyhow, Lovell sat down in it. But he stood up
first and took a calm comprehensive survey of everybody
through the spectacles ; then removed his skull-cap, for
it was summer, and he had shaved his head all but a
small patch over each ear, and sat down to listen to the
discourse. Apparently it attracted him, for he began
to lean forward more and more, gazing gravely at the
preacher. It was the Reverend Mr. X., I remember,
and he seemed awfully struck by Lovell's earnest atten-
tion, and worked himself up to his most telling points.
Just as he reached his finest climax, the laws of gravity
proved too much for Lovell. The fore-legs of his chair
slipped, and: Lovell slid abruptly, but gravely, to the
floor, while the back of the chair, falling forward, lay

246 WHEBE GHINH8JE8 BBIVE.

gracefully on his shoulders, and formed a neat and
effective frame for the bald head and big spectacles. The
preacher paused and glared at Lovell. Lovell continued
to beam on him, undisturbed. ' This conduct is very
reprehensible ! ' said the preacher. Lovell took it for a
pulpit utterance, which may not be answered aloud : so
nodded gravely, in approbation. ' You 're drunk ; get
up ! ' said the preacher. Lovell gazed at him in mild
astonishment : this did not sound like a pulpit utterance.
' Remove him,' said the preacher. Then Dr. Josephs
came forward, and requested Lovell to rise. When
Lovell saw who it was, he got up, the chair still round
his neck, observed, ' I don't agree with that article of
yours, Doctor, about the Chinese and the Lost Ten
Tribes,' drove the Doctor into a corner, and began a hot
argument to prove his pet theory to be all wrong.

" The meeting then broke up, and resolved itself into
a Committee of Elders in the remaining three corners,
for the discussion of Lovell' s behaviour. Before they
had time to frame a resolution sufficiently condemnatory,
Lovell shook hands vrith the Doctor, and walked
rapidly out of the room, Mrs. Josephs dexterously re-
moving the chair as he went by. They never passed
that resolution, for Dr. Josephs said he was convinced,
from the way in which Mr. Lovell had fallen in with his
views about the Lost Ten Tribes, that there really was
nothing at all the matter with him . . .

"Lovell," observed Frere, reflectively, "always
managed to fall on his feet somehow. That is," he
added, hastily, " metaphorically speaking, of course."

Service in the Legation Chapel was suspended for

SUMMER IN TOWN. 24,7

some six weeks in the height of summer : when most
people were at the hills, and those in town unequal to a
walk in the middle of the day. The Chapel is a great
boon to missionaries in Shansi or Kansu. Two of them
were married there a few months ago, and in Chinese
costume. The bridegroom had travelled several hundred
miles to meet his bride, and possibly thought it less
picturesque, or more inconvenient, to resume the gar-
ments of civilisation and the discomforts of a shirt
collar. And a Chinese woman's dress is pretty enough
to wear for its own sake.

When we were not busy in taking our walks abroad,
or in paying calls, or in playing tennis, we could get a
little mild excitement from looking after our garden.
The piece of ground of which the Quarters and the
Mess-room form the north and west sides respectively,
was at first a mere yard. But presently a proper sense
of the impropriety of this being aroused, Bertram, with
the assistance of two or three of the then students, set
to work to make a garden. Mud from the " Imperial
Canal " just outside the gate of the Legation served for
soil, and was brought in wheel-barrows by the amateur
gardeners, while the dispossessed brick-ends and rubble
went as return cargo to the canal. A few weeks of con-
fusion and a few years of order produced the garden as
we saw it. Then a large wistaria climbed along the
front of the Quarters, and creepers overran the outer
wall of the Mess-room and the little dressing-room of
the Theatre. A cluster of flowering trees, lilac, rose,
mimosa, nearly concealed the Mess-room, and set out in

248 WHEBE GKINESES DBIVE.

pots or planted in the beds were fig-trees and scarlet or
white pomegranates.

In autumn a great pit was dug and all the " bedding-
out " plants put in it for the winter. It was covered
with stalks of kao-liang and earth, and had air-holes
with straw stoppers. It was in one of these stoppers
that a hedgehog used to take up his abode in winter.
He was an old friend of our dogs : they would hunt him
out at 11 o'clock for several nights running, and bark
till we got irritated and shied things at them. Every-
thing in North China that has to be kept is buried : ice,
grapes, pai li (" white pears "), as well as flowers. In
the spring a rose-bush will be taken out with buds still
undecayed and bright green leaves : indeed, our last
season's roses supplied Gordon with button-holes for
more than a fortnight after the pit had been opened.

Men from the nursery-gardens used to bring us plants
to purchase — in spring a peach-tree nine feet high and
in full bloom, that died a few days after it had been
transplanted ; later on, all kinds of flowers that required
careful examination before buying — for many of them
were rootless. Once, I remember, a small orange-tree
with fruit, yellow fruit, on it,, was brought, and looked
so pretty that we thought of buying it for the Mess-
room table, when someone discovered that every fruit
was wired on to its bough ; and as the seller could
not guarantee their keeping fresh, negotiations were
broken off.

When we first came up, a crowd of curio-sellers used
to appear with their goods and get large prices out of
our inexperience, until we grew more wary. Too wary

SUMMER IN TOWN. 249

sometimes, perhaps, for we refused to give six dollars
a pair for " Peking bowls " that the men would not sell
under fourteen the year after. The Peking curio market
has been spoilt by the high prices recklessly given by
passing visitors or the agents of foreign shops. One
curio-seller was always coming round. He was a most
amusing fellow, named Wang. If any rival appeared
he would put on quite a " Codlin's-the-friend " sort of
air, and declare that we should not think of shifting our
custom from such an old acquaintance. Eandolph used
to say he did not approve of wasting dollars over
" crockery," and, as we knew, he did not go in for
brass. But when we asked him how he came to be
possessed of the cups and bowls on his mantelpiece, he
explained that after all he did not wish to be singular ;
and, besides, he had bought them as a job lot at
Kirkman's auction — a great bargain, didn't we think ?
And he had had a toasting-fork and an iron kettle
thrown in.

Other tradesmen, too, would come with their wares.
There was one man, an artist, who really had some
excellent pictures of Chinese life. The perspective was
extraordinary, but the work was wonderfully minute.
He would bring you two or three dozen outlines to
choose from, and these were afterwards filled in with the
proper colours. The most amusing things in his col-
lection were the pictures of the Signing of the Treaty
of Tientsin, and the Audience before the Emperor T'ung-
chih. In the former the English and French were care-
fully distinguished by their red and blue coats. In the
foreground a man with a couple of epaulets was holding

260 WSUBE 0HINE8U8 BBIVK

in one hand an extraordinary affair intended to represent
a rifle, and leading a horse with the other ; in the back-
ground were the plenipotentiaries seated at different
tables, and apparently all talking at once. But though
he was proud of these productions, we did him more
justice, and judged him by his other works.

Three times a month a fair is held at a temple in the
city known as Lung-fu Ssii. It is as crowded as, but
less noisy than, a country fair at home, and it is intended
rather for a market than a place of junketing. Here
we used to go to buy the little mud figures that imitate
so cleverly the scorpions, centipedes, and crickets that
abound in the hills. Curios proper, porcelain and bronze,
were sold for the most part in shops in the Chinese City.
Here, too, was " Picture Street," where we bought our
lanterns and scrolls. But shopping in Peking soon
palled : you were obliged to go on foot, and that might
involve a crowd, and certainly insured your getting dusty
or dirty to a degree noticeable even in Peking.

Our gardener (in winter one of the bowling-alley
coolies) was a queer character. He had only one eye,
but plenty of zeal, and any number of new ideas ready
to hand, should we be wanting in them. He it was who
inspired us with a desire to keep gold-fish, and remotely
hinted, as we supposed, at a bamboo grove. We thought
we would try the bamboo grove first, and gave orders
for fifty roots. The next day the gardener brought a
bundle of sticks and left them in the middle of the
garden. After they had been there some days we ven-
tured to remind him of those bamboo roots. Then he
introduced us to the bundle, and said that here were

SUMMER IN TOWN. 251

bamboos, but what we wanted them for he could not
quite make out. As for planting live bamboos, that, he
said, was contrary altogether to reason and propriety :
they would not thrive in a soil made up chiefly of
brick-bats and broken tiles. So we fell back on the
fish-pond.

A large earthenware jar stood half buried in the
ground near the garden gate, filled with flowers. This
the gardener proposed to unearth, empty, transfer to the
middle of the garden, and fill with water. All went
well till he discovered that the thing had no bottom to
it. He was not therefore discouraged, but decided to
get some wood from the carpenter to mend it. So he
presently appeared with two or three boards and a few
tools, and was very busy all the afternoon. When he
had nearly finished, a sound of loud wrangling brought
us out, and we found the carpenter abusing the gardener
for having carried off his property, while an escort-man
stood by and threatened to have him sent to the Yamen.
It seems that he had gone to ask the carpenter for wood,
but, not finding him at home, had walked away with the
first planks he came across. We appeased the car-
penter : we said that a one-eyed man could not be
expected to look at things in the same way as he did.
And we admonished our gardener. After that the jar
remained unsightly and unrepaired for a week or so,
when the gardener brought a friend of his to lay a
plaster bottom. This took some time ; and when it was
finished, he observed that we ought to have water-lilies
in the thing and they required mud. So buckets of mud
were brought, and finally some water-plants and a dozen

262 WHERE CHINE8E8 DRIVE.

gold-fish. The gardener added a couple of frogs and a
small eel, out of mere exuberance of spirits ; and so,
after many weeks of suspense, we were at last made
happy. The jar is right in front of the entrance to the
Quarters, and will doubtless be the scene of a comedy
or two before a new generation of students send back
it and the gardener who planted it to their original
stations in life.

But our garden in winter had its dangers before the
exodus of the jar (which O'Hara, by-the-bye, called the
Hejara). Some enthusiastic spirits started a slide, and
made themselves and the corridor wet and uncomfortable
by lugging along buckets of water at unreasonable hours
of the day and night. The danger to unwary strangers
was great, and always present to us. One Christmas
Eve we were sitting in the Mess-room, after dinner, on
chairs — or the floor — in front of the fire, and had
brewed a loving-cup, when Paley was called away. He
was heard to lead the visitor carefully through the gar-
den, then stop, and say, in an agitated voice, " Mind the
slide " ; but what happened after that is shrouded in
mystery. One rumour has it that the visitor took it for
anew edition of "Mind the step," and behaved like
Naaman the Syrian when he remarked on the waters of
Israel. Another declares that Paley could not be got to
say anything else, and the visitor found it impossible to
keep up a lengthy conversation on those terms. Any-
how, Paley came back presently, alone. We have
examined him at intervals since, but he preserves a
diplomatic and sphinx-like silence. It will be a question
for future ages to publish monographs on, like the

SUMMER IN TOWN. 253

Moabite Stone, or to discuss in the Quarterly, as the
Authorship of the Letters of Junius.

The greatest luxury in the way of food at Peking was
undoubtedly pork. We did not dare to eat the Peking
pigs, because they are brought up so badly; but we
thought we might safely venture on one that had been
reared under our own eyes, as it were. So we bought a
sucking-pig, and the gardener built him a sty. O'Hara
undertook to be overseer, and to assess and collect the
money for his keep. Unfortunately, after three months
or so, O'Hara found he was a considerable loser by it :
so laid the account before the Mess, who decided to
make over the pig to O'Hara to defray expenses. So
our experiment was not a brilliant success.

We had some amusement out of that pig, though,
while he was in our possession. One evening when we
had invited some men to dine with us, and among them
a man who was great at mimicry, and really could do
the cat-and-dog business to perfection, we determined,
should he, as was expected, try the pig as well, to have
an echo behind the curtains. At the last moment
our arrangements went wrong, but we had the pig intro-
duced all the same in propria persona, and ran him
round the Mess-room table, amid an uproar of squeals
from the victim and furious barkings from the asto-
nished and excited dogs. After this introduction to
polite society a good deal of notice was taken of our
pig, and a rosette of pink ribbons to be tied to his tail
on New Year's Day was promised by one lady-resident.
He perished, unhappily, before the time, and his tail
with him.

254 WHERE GSINESES BBIVE.

Besides the pig, four of us kept a cow for some
months, fresh milk not being otherwise obtainable. But
the cow was hardly more successful than the pig. In
fact, we were reluctantly forced to the conclusion that
the garden and the boys' quarters did not comprise all
that was necessary to make a stock-farm successful.

256

VIII. Exam, and Exit.

We were not deeply read in Domestic Economy, and we
were ruled a great deal by precedent. But, fortunately,
as a Mess we were under the management of a most
capable caterer, and so kept within bounds. I have
found the old Mess-bills I spoke of, and copy one of the
heaviest of them here : —

Mess Bill.

Messing

. ns.oo

Guests

1.75

Cook's bill, etc. .

1.92

Coolie's do

1.66 .

Store Fund

2.00

Mess Coffee (five months)

2.34

„ Bread

0.70

„ Washing .

0.31

Napkins

0.25

Coal ....

1.56

Christmas Puddings .

1.12

Glass ....

2.28

Miscellaneous : Clock repaired, coffee-

0.96

machine, window-panes, stove

ort'watyn oiivTQTn K\r\Ii3C!

oKjL xiKjllj \j\XL uailLl- UUlciSi

jg31.85=^5 17s

The " Store Fund " was raised to supply the cook
with such condiments as, being foreign imports, he could
not be expected to provide under the terms of his con-

256 WRERE CHINESES BBIVE.

tract. We procured them from Tientsin or Shanghai, or
from one or other of the two European stores in Peking.
It would, perhaps, have been better to have got them
out from England, and it is a pity that a Students'
Store has not been started with that object. It was
suggested and approved, but fell through, chiefly for
want of capital. The best method in future would be,
immediately on the arrival of new students, to lay an
attractive prospectus before them, and show by clear
argument the advantage of "taking shares in the con-
cern. It is only new students who have superfluous
dollars, and if these are not directed into some proper
channel such as this, they will, in all probability, be
squandered in curios.

Twice a year we were visited by the travellers of the
large European stores in Shanghai and Tientsin, and
received circulars to the efiect that " our Mr. Z. will
show at the French Hotel," or elsewhere, between
certain hours — when it was considered proper to attend,
and discuss the new fashions. But many things can
now be got from Chinese shops ; and there are plenty
of native tailors — Canton men, for the most part — in
the employ of Tientsin native firms, who will make a
suit of clothes to any pattern. The English these men
speak is almost as bad as their Pekingese, and I have
sometimes had to interpret between the tailor and my
teacher. For Sung used to take a great deal of interest
in the trying-on of my coats ; one day in particular I
remember, when my tailor had brought home a black
alpaca jacket. Sung could not be got to approve of it
at all. He said it made me look too thin. The tailor

EXAM. AND EXIT. 267

said it did not. Then they argued the point for a bit,
till the tailor shifted his ground, and declared that if it
did make me look thin, it was because I was thin.
With this he prodded me in the waistcoat to show that
it was wadded. I sternly rebuked him, and adjourned
the discussion sine die. It was taking an unflattering
turn.

Our dress in summer was simplicity itself — a patrol
jacket of white drill, and trousers to match. But
O'Hara could not easily divest himself of early preju-
dices, and clung to coat-tails and shirt-collars. We
used to humour him when riding out to the hills
together to pay our calls. A mafoo was taken with
the impedimenta, and the garments of ciyilization were
donned in some adjacent cemetery. O'Hara had long
made up his mind to walk into town from the hills, and
started one afternoon shortly after tiffin. Ellerby saw
him safely off, and gave him much good advice, and
two bottles of beer. Presently he disappeared on the
horizon, the bottles bulging out from each coat-pocket
like panniers. He was deposited at the Legation in
the course of the evening by a carter. When asked for
his story, he, like the knife-grinder, had none to tell.
He had walked a mile qr two, and had found the bottles'
heavy ; another mile, and remembered they contained
beer. At an opportune tea-house he had knocked off
the tops of the bottles, the centre of an admiring crowd,
and drunk their contents by instalments out of little
tea-cups. After that he felt drowsy, but recollects
hailing a cart. Exhausted nature somehow seemed to
require a siesta.

17

268 WHEBE CHINESES DRIVE.

Our coals were all brought from the Western Hills
on camel-back. They were of different qualities, from
"hard coal" to coal-balls. These last were simply
balls of coal-dust mixed with a little clay and dried in
the sun. Our chief difficulty at the beginning of winter
was to decide how much we ought to pay the boy a
month for supplying us with fuel, and in what pro-
portion coal-balls might be used. The last quotation
is eight dollars a month for hard coal, and seven dollars
for " seconds."

The escort used to rear poultry in the stable-yard,
and every December a certain number of turkeys were
balloted for, or sold by private contract. Anything of
foreign bringing-up was, naturally, a luxury in Peking.
(O'Hara thinks this statement too general ; Student
Interpreters, he believes, were not so regarded.) But
the Euro-Pekingese (or shall I say "Pekingites," to
distinguish them from the Pekingese, just as the native
Fohkienese from the foreign " Foochovite " ?) were
better off in the way of food than the people at some of
the southern ports, Amoy, for instance. I think it was
at the latter place that great consternation was once
caused among the foreign residents by the news that all
the beef -butchers had been put under arrest. Mutton
is very rare, for it has to be brought from Shanghai,
and lamb is looked on as a curio ; so famine, or worse
— a course of Chinese diet — stared the unfortunate
settlers in the face. Finally, diplomatic pressure was
brought to bear, and strong expostulations with the
native authorities at last restored hope and beef.

EXAM. AND EXIT. 259

The near approach of our Final Examination led us
to review our financial positions, collectively and indi-
vidually. As the second year drew to a close, Herington
began to evolve many schemes for settling his accounts.
After much thought he drew up a schedule : liabilities
so much, assets so much ; Jones & Co. to receive such
a portion of their account at the end of the quarter,
Robinson Bros, half theirs in four months' time, and so
on. It was flawless, and really looked very well when
neatly written out and ruled in red ink, and fastened on
the wall with drawing-pins. But there were unexpected
hitches, as Herington had to confess. " Here are Robin-
son Bros.," he said one day, " insisting on being paid
at the end of the month. Now, would that be fair on
Brown and Smith, who are down on the schedu e for
that date ? Obviously not. But it is only proper to
give Brown and Smith the opportunity of doing a gene-
rous action. I will write and put it to them whether,
seeing that Robinson Bros, are so importunate, they
are willing to change places. If they are not, I must
make some arrangement with Jones.

" Talking of duns, did Bertram tell you I met
Schmidt — the storekeeper, I mean — at Corry's omnium
gatherum a month or two ago ? Curious, wasn't it ? but
I did. Schmidt had been very rude to me last year, if
you remember, about my little account — declined to
accept a composition ; declined to wait till July twelve-
months for the first instalment ; threatened all sorts of
quaint proceedings. Well, I thought it was a good
opportunity for showing that I bore no malice, so at
supper-time I insisted on helping him to various luxu-

17 *

260 WHERE 0EINESE8 DBIYE.

ries. I brought some ham along, and gave him some.
He declined it ; but I forced it on him, and he ate it.
Also I engaged him in pleasing conversation — or tried
to, at least ; it wasn't much of a success. Still, I feel
confident I should have melted him, metaphorically
speaking, to tenderness at last, but for Bertram, He
was between us at the supper-table, and he kept up a
running accompaniment of encouraging remarks to me
in a stage whisper : ' How nicely you do it ! ' ' He
can't resist that ! ' ' Have at him again ! ' ' He '11
send you a receipt to-morrow.' And all the time
Schmidt was glowering at me in what struck me as
an eminently unfriendly vyay. The next day he sent
me a vindictive dun, reminding me, in his coarse,
uncultured way, of the length of time that had elapsed
since I last paid him anything. He wound up by
demanding an immediate settlement. I considered
this very ungracious, seeing how attentive I had been
to him the night before, and I thought of writing to
tell him so ; but, after all, it seemed more becoming
to pass over his ingratitude in silence. However, from
the tone of his later letters (the correspondence has
been all along a one-sided one) he hardly seems to have
thoroughly appreciated my delicacy.

" I do not know," he went on, " why I am troubled
in this way. It may be for my sins, but I rather think
not. It is more probable that Fate is adverse, and must
be propitiated." Here he rose (we were sitting on the
balcony at the time, after dinner) and went into his
room, and brought back something in his hand. " You
see this cup ? Yes. Well, it is one of a pair I bought

EXAM. AND EXIT. 261

when I first came up, and I think it 's pretty good,
don't you ? I mean to throw it away," and as he spoke
he flung it into the garden. " The pair to it had a mdo
ping [flaw] in it, and I was strongly tempted to take
that, but was resolved that the sacrifice should be
complete." He sighed so lugubriously here that we
could hardly help laughing. " And now to pick up the
pieces." He was absent a minute or two, then came
back with a very long face. "What is the matter?"
" Look at this ] Not broken — not even chipped ! ' Poly-
crates' ring,' you say ? Maybe ; but it 's a bad omen
for Brown and Smith.

"I am unfortunate in all my schemes, somehow.
You know I started one for working that seemed admir-
able. Get up at 6 and work till 12, half an hour being
allowed for breakfast. Tiffin, a light one, at noon, and
sleep till 2. Then more work till 4. One hour's
exercise, and Chinese till dinner-time ; and as many
hours after dinner as can be managed. There was a
hitch in this scheme, too. If I worked in the evening
I could not get up at 6 ; if I slept in the evening I
woke at 2. This waking at 2 was annoying, for the
fire would be going out, or the lamp ; and so I tried
sitting up a little later. It was just the same ; I woke
at 2. I got irritated ; but I thought it was as well to
do things systematically, so I made up my mind to
wake at 1.30, and, after a few failures, succeeded. The
next night I contrived to wake at L ; and so I- went on,
getting up a little earlier each night. At last perse-
verance was rewarded. I woke up before I went to
sleep. But it ruined my system — oh no, I do not

262 WHERE CHINE8E8 DRIVE

mean my constitution ; that 's all right ; I mean the
scheme.

" But, talking of ruining the constitution, and
harassing cares, and the rest of it, have you noticed
Chapman since he has had charge of the keys of the
chest ? He ought really to stay in a tomb all daytime,
and only haunt the place at night. I tried to get him
to talk the other day ; but his mind keeps running on
keys and locks in the most, gloomy way. Apropos of
keys, X. was telling me that he was calling one day on
the Z's. ' It is curious,' said Z., ' how things turn up.
You remember my losing the key of that safe a year
ago, and how we hunted everywhere for it, and what
trouble there was in getting the safe forced ? Well, for
the last few days there has been something wrong with
the water-tank outside, and so I had it emptied, and
found at the bottom — this.' ' Why, it must be the very
key ! ' exclaimed X., as he turned over the rusty bit of
metal. ' Without doubt,' answered Z., wrapping it up
again. Just then Mrs. Z. came in looking rather
annoyed. ' My dear, I wish you would speak to the
coolie for me. I left the door of my store-closet open,
and Johnny has been making himself ill with the
candied fruits.' ' Give him a pill, my love,' answered
Z. ; 'he will be all right.' ' Oh, but it is not that so
much, only Johnny said he was not going to let the
store-closet be locked up any more, and he has thrown
the key into the water-tank.' ' It is remarkable,' ob-
served X., ' how hastily we jump at conclusions.' And
so they parted.

" But here is my teacher coming, and I really cannot

HXAM. AND EXIT. 263

have you fellows disturbing me any longer. You don't
mind, do you ? Good-night."

Student-life had much that was enjoyable ; even our
work was not without a certain fascination of its own.
(The characters, we were told by an eminent authority,
were particularly engrossing, and Herington used to
read out part of the preface to the Tzu erh Chi with
great emphasis, and earnestly entreat Gordon "not to
be led away by the attractions of the written character."
Gordon said he would not.) The only drawback was
the fact that we were working against one another, since
our seniority in the Service was to be decided according
to our place in the Final Examination. I hardly venture
to say anything against the principle of competition, but
it seemed a pity that it should be applied in this case.
Competitive examinations and the preparation for them
are natural to the modern school-boy, and comparatively
harmless, perhaps, in the climate of England. But I
think this is by no means the cas6 in Peking ; and, to
increase the danger, it almost invariably happens that
the examination is held in the middle of summer,
when the thermometer may be standing at 105° or 106°
in the shade.

Gordon took it into his head one evening to have a
fit. He had wandered out of the room in an aimless
sort of way, and so, as he did not come back, EUerby
went in search of him. He says, " I went outside,
and called * Gordon ! Gordon ! ' but as nobody answered,
I was coming in again. It was very dark, but I made
out a sort of brown shadow in the gutter, I thought it

264 WHUBE GSINESHS BBIVK

was a Chinaman, so I kicked it, and said, ' Shen mo ? '
[' What ? '] It did not answer. Then I kicked it again,
and said, ' Shui ? ' [' Who ? '1. Then I saw it was
Grordon. He cannot have read much, can he ? if he
did not know what Shen-mo meant." After that we
put Gordon to bed, and sat up to watch him. It is
hungry work, watching in the small hours; so we
decided to have supper, and ransacked Gordon's cup-
board with that end in view. We found a ham, and
some boxes of sardines, and other things, with bottled
beer and whisky. Gordon was all right in a day or
two ; but he says it does not pay to have fits, especially
if you are thinking of giving a picnic, and have laid in
stores accordingly.

But to come back to our work. At the start all
were the same, as the Chinese horn-book has it. Our
teachers knew no English, and we soon found the
value of such words as "just like " and " for instance."
One man, some years ago, when about to be left alone
for a few months, was asked by someone who thought
him not altogether proficient in Pekingese, how he
would manage ? He answered, confidently enough,
" Oh, I shall pi-fang [' for instance '] it through all
right." And he probably did.

Our course was, as I have said, to a great extent
laid down for us ; but each man had his special fah-tza
— his method of work. Not altogether rightly, perhaps,
for, on the whole, it is better not to leave the beaten
track. To bring your mind to bear in any way inde-
pendently on the study of Chinese is to needlessly
endanger it. For some time a growing fondness for

EXAM. AND EXTT. 265

fah-tzas on Duncan's part had given EUerby great
anxiety. One day, as he had seen nothing of Duncan
for some time, he went round to his rooms. He found
him bending over a saucepan, in which he was busily
stirring something over the fire with a pair of chop-
sticks, muttering to himself the while. EUerby said,
" Hullo, Duncan ! what on earth are you up to now ?
A new fah-tza ? " Duncan did not answer, but kept on
stirring. Presently he murmured, " It will nearly do,
now," and he fished out with the chop-sticks a sodden
mass of pulp, that looked as though it might have been
a book. Then he turned to EUerby, and said, in a
sad and subdued voice, " This was once the Elements
of the philosopher Euclid, the symbol of hard material-
istic fact. This " — and he took from the saucepan a
second lump and held it up — " is a shred, a remnant.
Before, it embodied the spirit of divine fancy. Then it
was known as the Idylls of the King." EUerby did not
feel exactly cheerful ; but as Duncan seemed to expect
some remark from him, he said encouragingly, " All
right, old man ; go on." Duncan was gazing straight
before him, with a far-away look in his eyes, and
holding the dripping mass in each hand. He said,
"Without these life exists not; but man should drink
of the essence of both. See, I have boiled them down ;
and lo, the divine draught ! " Here he snatched up
the saucepan, and drank off its contents. EUerby
edged round to the door ; then, as Duncan began to
wave the saucepan about, and to yell, he promptly
slipped to the other side of it. He heard the saucepan
crash against the panel ; then he turned the key, which

266 WHEBE GHINWES BBIVE.

happened to be outside, and went for the escort men
and an extemporised strait-waistcoat.

Later on in our reading, some of us used to engage
professional story-tellers to come to our rooms and tell
their tales. O'Hara, again, thought he was getting a
little out of practice and ought to read aloud more ;
so he had his teacher in, and went through the " Hun-
dred Lessons " — part of the Tzu erh CM — as fast as he
could. He noted the time, and afterwards took to
reading against it with a stop-watch. The system, he
thinks, is, on the whole, good, but distinctly dry ; and
too much beer, he is told, is bad for the liver.

O'Hara was a neat hand at map-making, and had a
theory that the proper way to construct a map was to
collect the latitude and longitude of as many places as
possible, and then lay them down accordingly. He
says he tried it with Korea. The first big town he fixed
fell some hundred miles out to sea; but he was not
discouraged, and decided that it was on an island. Then
he got the bearings of the mouth of a river, and found
that that lay a hundred and fifty miles or so from the
nearest coast. After that he made several forcible
remarks about his system, and gave up map-making
for the time.

Our Examination was not, after all, a formidable
affair ; it erred, if anything, on the side of simplicity.
But it was held in the height of summer, when even to
hold the pen seemed to increase the heat we suffered
from. Our paper -work was done in our own rooms, or
in the Keception Hall of the Minister's residence. Here

EXAM. AND EXIT. 267

right opposite the entrance, is a life-size portrait of the
Queen. (Dr. Eennie, in his Peking and the Pekingese,
vol. i. p. 230, describes the excitement caused by its
arrival. ) While we were waiting for our examiner, a
sudden desire seized Gordon to show his loyalty, after
the custom of the country ; so he dropped down in front
of the portrait, and solemnly knocked his head nine
times on the floor, kotowing in proper form. He
seemed much inspirited by it, and had a feeling that he
was now in some way under the special tutelage of Her
Majesty, and could be trusted to floor the paper.

A few days after the result of the examination had
been declared, a few of us received orders to go down
South, as Acting Second Assistants at different ports.
Then there was a bustle of packing-up, and a round of
P. P. C. calls to be made. The visiting was done while
the boy looked after one's things — there was no time to
personally conduct both. We were obliged to leave
others to arrange for the sale of our furniture, by
auction or by private contract. Herington used to
declare that, partly because he wished other people had
done the same by him, and partly because he had no
hope of selling it at its proper value, he meant to leave
his furniture as a Bequest. It was not to be removed
from the room under any pretence whatever, certainly
not under any such frivolous pretence as a desire to
have the floor scrubbed. He said that the places where
great men had lived and thought should not be dis-
turbed by mops and pails ; the very dust should be
held sacred. To add to the value of the Bequest, he

268 WHEBS OHINESm DRIVE.

was prepared to affix his autograph to every article,
and, provided Brown and Smith would give him credit,
to have a brass plate fastened to the door, with an
honorific inscription to himself and his many virtues,
in English, Latin, and Chinese. Then, if O'Hara
would paint on the lower panel, in his best German
text, Non omnis moriar, he thought he might go down
happy, to posterity and the Ports.

Gordon and I were among the first to leave, and we
arranged (or he did ; he always, as he said, had to do
the arranging in our joint expeditions) to send on the
carts with our luggage to T'ungchow, to be placed on
board the boats there, while we left by the Tung-pien
M6n (the "East Wicket"), and went by canal to join
them. He invited the friends who wished to see him
off (to sung him, as. we, following our teachers, used to
call it) to breakfast at the " Princess's Tomb." A
walled enclosure stands a little way back from the north
bank of the canal that runs from T'ungchow to the city,
and leading up to the entrance-gates (which are kept
strictly locked) is an avenue of roughly-carved stone
figures. Two large stone lions stand in front of the
vestibule, one on each side. Six or seven of us rode
down on ponies or donkeys to the East Wicket, and got
on board one of the clumsy canal-boats moored to the
bank near it. These in summer take the place of the
winter sledges, or "beds," as the Chinese call them,
that look like low tables on wooden runners, and get
over the ground, or rather ice, at a tremendous pace.
The boats are slow enough, as they are punted or pulled

EXAM. AND EXIT. 269

along by men in whose lives an extra day or two is of
no particular consequence.

It was still early morning when we pushed off, and
the sun's rays lay level on the water or shone through
green reeds on either shore. And so we paddled slowly
on, till the city walls dropped out of sight. I do not
think that I regretted then leaving them behind ; the
day was so fine, and, besides^ we had just come to a
lock, and were forced to tranship. A "lock" is rather
a misnomer, for, though there are several levels between
Peking and T'ungchow, at each of them there is now
only a sluice, and no boats can be sent through. We
got on board our second boat, and presently arrived at
the Tomb, where we were joined by those who had
ridden the whole way.

The boys were laying breakfast when we arrived, in
the vestibule, on the pavement in front of the gates.
There being no table, we had to lie on the stones, or
extemporise seats out of hampers, while at a respectful
distance (being kept off by our boys) stood a semi-circle
of villagers and their children, gazing open-mouthed.
We fed the youngsters and chaffed their fathers, and,
when breakfast and speech -making were, over, put the
empty champagne-bottles on the top of the lions and
potted them with brick-bats. Having thus given vent
to our emotion, we felt equal to saying good-bye.
Victor, who had an off-day, came with us; the rest
went their several ways.

So we proceeded towards T'ungchow in a sufficiently
lazy and pleasant manner, except for the nuisance of

270 WHEBE 0HINESE8 DRIVE.

having to tranship ourselves and our belongings at each
weir, and bargain for a new boat to take us along the
next level. I believe the Chinese have a system of
through tickets, and get from Peking to T'ungchow by
water cheaply and easily enough ; but we were strangers,
and therefore, I suppose, they took us in. The canal is
very pretty in parts, and nowhere, at least on a bright
day, ugly, though its course is very straight, and the
country around it very flat. As we came in sight of
the Pagoda of T'ungchow, we found ourselves close to
Pa-li Ch'iao, the bridge where the Chinese made their
last stand in 1860, and whence the Comte de Palikao
derived his title. How he came to spell it in that way
I have never heard, for, extraordinary and eccentric as
is the French system of transliterating Chinese cha-
racters, it is scarcely as bad as this. The only other
title derived from a place in China is, as far as I know,
that of Gough of Chinkiangfu, and there the spelling
does, at any rate, approximate to the local pronunci-
ation.

The water under the bridge looked so cool (for now
the sun was hot upon the canal) that we had our boat
brought up close to the arch, and stripped and plunged
in. The inevitable villagers assembled on the bridge,
meanwhile, and made audible remarks on our perfor-
mance, Victor, who, though scarcely of age, has a
great beard, of which he is not unjustly proud, was
described as the " old-head," to his intense delight.

A Chinaman shaves beard and moustache till he is
forty, and, judging from their scantiness, is wise in
doing so, for, otherwise, he might not have them then.

EXAM. AND EXIT. 271

Sung used to count the hairs on his upper lip with the
aid of a small pocket-glass. He said that he had been
growing a moustache for three years, and there were
now nineteen hairs. His wife declared there, were
twenty-one ; but she had better eyes than he. He
thought the rate of progress very satisfactory. As a
rule, he said, he admired the beards of Europeans, but
sometimes they were too bushy, and the colour was not
good. And, indeed, it seems rather a pity that a rigid
rule has not been passed forbidding red-haired men to
come to China, unless they will agree to dye. It is a
cruelty to them. You might as well expect a green-
haired man to walk down the Strand without attracting
remarks from the City Arabs, as an Englishman with
flame-coloured hair to pass unmolested in China. They
probably will not heave half bricks at him (that is con-
fined to our own Black Country), but they will use him
to point the moral that the genuine English devil has
hair like fire, and is not to be confounded with Parsees
or Portuguese. And of all irritating things I know,- the
worst is to be pointed at as a bogy. The thing does
not admit of argument ; if you look like a bogy, to all
intents and purposes you are one. The only thing to
soothe your melancholy is, as of old, to dye.

As the Chinese resemble most other people in judging
foreigners by themselves, a very callow moustache is
sufficient to add twenty years or so to a European's
age. They are equally unfortunate in distinguishing a
man from a woman in a foreign picture. If only faces
are given, they are often altogether at a loss ; and even
the dresses do not always help them, for in China, as

272 WHERE CHINESE8 BBIVE.

someone says, the men wear petticoats and the women
trousers. But it seems to them most unreasonable
that no difference of coiffure should necessarily dis-
tinguish a matron. My boy was very puzzled to know
whom he should address as hu-niang (Miss) and whom
as t'di-t'ai (Madam). He carefully noticed how the
ladies wore their hair, and, thinking that the youngest
were most likely to be unmarried, settled the whole
thing to his satisfaction. He was heard to explain to
another boy that " after all, there was very little dif-
ference between the Chinese and the foreign fashions ;
the foreign girls wore their hair in a pig-tail, while the
married women did it up in a top-knot."

It was past 5 o'clock when we drew near T'ungchow.
The last reach of the canal is perfectly straight. On
the right hand is the crumbling wall of the city ; on the
left, a bank overgrown with tall reeds. At the end of
the vista so formed is the Pagoda, of thirteen storeys,
and in front of the Pagoda trees overhang the water.
Beyond is the landing-place, where a score or so of
barges are moored. To reach the bank of the Peiho, "
and the house-boats we had ordered to be ready for us,
we had to defile through a narrow lane, then trudge
across the sandy common that is between the city, walls
and the river. We found our boats among a crowd of
others, and stirred up the boys, and gave ourselves a
dinner-tea. After this Victor left us, for his pony
was waiting, and had to be ridden fast to reach Peking
before the gates closed. Then our boatmen unmoored
and pushed off into the stream.

UXAM. AND EXIT. 273

So we began our journey southwards,' and regret-
fully, perhaps, for many pleasant memories remained
of those two years, but still with the -feeliag that this
was the last of our pupilage, ended our

Student Life at Peking.

18

274 WHERE 0HINE8E8 DRIVE.

NOTE.

Paley objects to the title of this book. But it seemed
necessary to have a title, and his suggestions I could
not bring myself to approve. He was all for something
sweet and mystic, after the fashion of " Sesame and
Lilies," and he assured me that these elements were to
be found in " Kaoliang and Cucumbers." I am not
always able to follow Paley' s reasonings, which are
very subtle ; but I was pained at the want of intelli-
gence that refused to recognize the force and beauty,
and general appropriateness of "Where Chineses drive."
I turned out the passage in Paradise Lost—

On his way lights on the barren plains

Of Sericana, where Chineses drive

With wind and sail their cany wagons light — Bk. iii., 438.

but he was apathetic. I showed that this must refer to
North China, because Chineses did not drive wagons,
cany or otherwise, anyhow, anywhere else. He said I
had not been there to see. I explainecl the almost

NOTE. 276

prophetic reference to Sung's coaching. Then he rose
hurriedly, and said he would not countenance anything
of that sort, and left. He was a very Egypt, a hruised
reed, to lean upon in the matter of titles.

LONDON ;
PKINTED BT W, H. AUJSS & CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE. S.W.